The Second Clinical College of Guangzhou, University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
West China School of Public Health and West China Fourth Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
BMC Psychiatry. 2024 Jul 19;24(1):515. doi: 10.1186/s12888-024-05941-7.
The relationships between BUNCr (blood urea nitrogen and creatinine ratio) and cognitive function, as well as depressive symptoms, remain unclear. We aim to investigate the association between BUNCr and cognition, as well as depressive symptoms, and to identify the mechanisms underlying these relationships.
We utilized data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) from 2015 to 2020. Cognitive function was assessed using the Telephone Interview of Cognitive Status (TICS) scale, while depressive symptoms were assessed using the 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-10). We employed multivariate linear regression models to examine the association between BUNCr and cognitive function, as well as depressive symptoms. Additionally, causal mediation analysis was conducted to identify potential mediation effects of depressive symptoms between BUNCr and cognition.
We observed a negative association between BUNCr and cognitive function (coefficient: -0.192; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.326 ∼ -0.059) and a positive relationship between BUNCr and depressive symptoms (coefficient: 0.145; 95% CI: 0.006 ∼ 0.285). In addition, the causal mediation analysis revealed that depressive symptoms (proportion mediated: 7.0%) significantly mediated the association between BUNCr and cognition.
Our study has unveiled that BUNCr is inversely associated with cognitive function and positively linked to depressive symptoms. Moreover, we found that depressive symptoms significantly mediated the association between BUNCr and cognition. These findings provide new evidence and insights for the prevention and management of cognitive function and dementia.
BUNCr（血尿素氮与肌酐比值）与认知功能和抑郁症状之间的关系尚不清楚。我们旨在探讨 BUNCr 与认知功能和抑郁症状之间的关系，并确定这些关系的潜在机制。
我们使用了中国健康与退休纵向研究（CHARLS）2015 年至 2020 年的数据。认知功能使用电话访谈认知状态量表（TICS）进行评估，抑郁症状使用 10 项流行病学研究中心抑郁量表（CES-D-10）进行评估。我们采用多元线性回归模型来检验 BUNCr 与认知功能和抑郁症状之间的关系。此外，还进行了因果中介分析，以确定 BUNCr 与认知之间抑郁症状的潜在中介作用。
我们观察到 BUNCr 与认知功能呈负相关（系数：-0.192；95%置信区间 [CI]：-0.326～-0.059），与抑郁症状呈正相关（系数：0.145；95%CI：0.006～0.285）。此外，因果中介分析表明，抑郁症状（中介比例：7.0%）显著中介了 BUNCr 与认知之间的关系。
本研究揭示了 BUNCr 与认知功能呈负相关，与抑郁症状呈正相关。此外，我们发现抑郁症状显著中介了 BUNCr 与认知之间的关系。这些发现为认知功能和痴呆的预防和管理提供了新的证据和思路。
