Departamento de Ciencias Médicas, División de Ciencias de la Salud, Campus León, Universidad de Guanajuato, León, Guanajuato 37320, Mexico.
Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México 04510, Mexico.
Nutrients. 2021 Oct 29;13(11):3875. doi: 10.3390/nu13113875.
Increases in depression are common in some elderly women. Elderly women often show moderate depressive symptoms, while others display minimal depressive symptoms. These discrepancies have produced contradictory and inconclusive outcomes, which have not been explained entirely by deficits in neurotransmitter precursors. Deficiency in some amino acids have been implicated in major depression, but its role in non-clinical elderly women is not well known. An analysis of essential amino acids, depression and the use of discriminant analysis can help to clarify the variation in depressive symptoms exhibited by some elderly women. The aim was to investigate the relationship of essential amino acids with affective, cognitive and comorbidity measures in elderly women without major depression nor severe mood disorders or psychosis, specifically thirty-six with moderate depressive symptoms and seventy-one with minimal depressive symptoms. The plasma concentrations of nineteen amino acids, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scores, Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) scores, global cognitive scores and comorbidities were submitted to stepwise discriminant analysis to identify predictor variables. Seven predictors arose as important for belong to the group based on amino acid concentrations, with the moderate depressive symptoms group characterized by higher BDI, GDS and cognitive scores; fewer comorbidities; and lower levels of l-histidine, l-isoleucine and l-leucine. These findings suggest that elderly women classified as having moderate depressive symptoms displayed a deficiency in essential amino acids involved in metabolism, protein synthesis, inflammation and neurotransmission.
一些老年女性中抑郁的发生率增加。老年女性常表现为中度抑郁症状，而其他女性则表现为轻度抑郁症状。这些差异产生了相互矛盾和不确定的结果，这些结果不能完全用神经递质前体的缺陷来解释。一些氨基酸的缺乏与重度抑郁症有关，但在非临床老年女性中的作用尚不清楚。对必需氨基酸、抑郁和判别分析的分析有助于阐明一些老年女性表现出的抑郁症状的变化。目的是调查在没有重度抑郁症或严重情绪障碍或精神病的老年女性中，必需氨基酸与情感、认知和共病测量之间的关系，具体包括 36 名中度抑郁症状患者和 71 名轻度抑郁症状患者。将 19 种氨基酸的血浆浓度、贝克抑郁量表 (BDI) 评分、老年抑郁量表 (GDS) 评分、整体认知评分和共病情况提交给逐步判别分析，以确定预测变量。有七个预测因子是根据氨基酸浓度来确定属于某个组别的重要指标，中度抑郁症状组的特点是 BDI、GDS 和认知评分较高；共病较少；以及 l-组氨酸、l-异亮氨酸和 l-亮氨酸水平较低。这些发现表明，被归类为中度抑郁症状的老年女性表现出参与代谢、蛋白质合成、炎症和神经递质传递的必需氨基酸缺乏。
