Uh Dasom, Jeong Hyun-Ghang, Choi Kwang-Yeon, Oh So-Young, Lee Suji, Kim Seung-Hyun, Joe Sook-Haeng
Department of Psychiatry, Korea University Guro Hospital, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Research Institute of Mental Health, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.
Clin Psychopharmacol Neurosci. 2017 May 31;15(2):163-169. doi: 10.9758/cpn.2017.15.2.163.
The pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD) is still not well understood. Conflicting results for surrogate.
biomarkers in MDD have been reported, which might be a consequence of the heterogeneity of MDD patients. Therefore, we aim to investigate how the severity of depression and various symptom domains are related to the levels of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-s) in MDD patients.
We recruited 117 subjects from a general practice. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Depressive symptoms were divided into three subdomains according to BDI items; somatic symptoms, guilt and failure, and mood and inhibition.
In subjects with very-mild-to-moderate depression, the DHEA-s level increased as BDI score did. However, the DHEA-s levels in the subjects with severe depression were significantly lower than in subjects with moderate depression (=0.003). DHEA-s level was correlated with the BDI subscore for guilt and failure in very-mild-to-moderate depression (r=0.365, =0.006).
The DHEA-s level appears to be indicative of MDD severity with respect to depressive symptoms, especially regarding guilt and failure. Our findings suggest that the upregulation of DHEA-s may be a part of a compensatory process in very-mild-to-moderate depression, and the failure of this compensation mechanism may underlie the development of severe depression.
重度抑郁症（MDD）的病理生理学仍未得到充分理解。关于MDD替代生物标志物的研究结果相互矛盾，这可能是MDD患者异质性的结果。因此，我们旨在研究抑郁症的严重程度和各种症状领域如何与MDD患者硫酸脱氢表雄酮（DHEA-s）水平相关。
我们从一家普通诊所招募了117名受试者。使用贝克抑郁量表（BDI）评估抑郁症状。根据BDI项目，抑郁症状分为三个子领域；躯体症状、内疚和失败，以及情绪和抑制。
在极轻度至中度抑郁症患者中，DHEA-s水平随BDI评分升高而升高。然而，重度抑郁症患者的DHEA-s水平显著低于中度抑郁症患者（P = 0.003）。在极轻度至中度抑郁症中，DHEA-s水平与BDI内疚和失败子评分相关（r = 0.365，P = 0.006）。
DHEA-s水平似乎可指示MDD抑郁症状的严重程度，尤其是在内疚和失败方面。我们的研究结果表明，DHEA-s的上调可能是极轻度至中度抑郁症代偿过程的一部分，而这种代偿机制的失败可能是重度抑郁症发展的基础。
