A prospective study into change of vitamin D levels, depression and frailty among depressed older persons

Abstract

Objectives While vitamin D is involved in frailty as well as depression, hardly any study has examined the course of vitamin D levels prospectively. The objective of this study is to examine whether a change of vitamin D in depressed older adults is associated with either depression course, course of frailty, or both. Methods The study population consisted of 232 of 378 older adults (60–93 years) with a DSM‐IV defined depressive disorder participating in the Netherlands Study of Depression in Older persons, a prospective clinical cohort study. Baseline and 2‐year follow‐up data on depressive disorder (DSM‐IV diagnosis), symptom severity (inventory of depressive symptoms), frailty phenotype (and its individual components) and vitamin D levels were obtained. Linear mixed models were used to study the association of change in vitamin D levels with depression course, course of frailty, and the combination. Results Vitamin D levels decreased from baseline to follow‐up, independent from depression course. An increase in frailty was associated with a significantly sharper decrease of vitamin D levels over time. Post hoc analyses showed that this association with frailty might be driven by an increase of exhaustion over time and counteracted by an increase in walking speed. Conclusions Our findings generate the hypothesis that vitamin D supplementation in late‐life depression may improve frailty, which may partly explain inconsistent findings of randomised controlled trials evaluating the effect of vitamin D for depression. We advocate to consider frailty (components) as an outcome in future supplementation trials in late‐life depression.

Muscle, endocrine, and immunological markers of frailty in older people

“…Furthermore, low VitD levels are associated with an increased risk of morbidity and mortality at all levels of frailty (Jayanama et al, 2018), and higher levels were related to reduced risks of frailty progression (Swiecicka et al, 2017). The interaction between the course of frailty and change in VitD levels is presented in the study by Van Den Berg et al (2021), in which it was observed that an increase in VitD levels proved to be related to a decrease in continuous frailty score, that is, each frailty criterion less was related to a VitD increase of 3.04 nmol /L. In this context, oral VitD supplementation has been considered a promising approach to frailty and its consequences (Jayanama et al, 2018).…”

Vitamin D in the time of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic – a clinical review from a public health and public mental health perspective

“…Three observational studies have been published since the most recent meta-analysis. 96 – 98 In these studies, the relationship between depression and VIT-D deficiency was less clear. One study failed to find a significant difference in participants with non-psychotic depression and controls.…”

“… 97 Another study, following older adults with a depressive disorder over 2 years, found that an increase in VIT-D concentrations was significantly associated with improved frailty scores when adjusted for depression, but not independently with improvement of depression. 98 …”