Younger, premenopausal women with major depressive disorder have more abdominal fat and increased serum levels of prothrombotic factors: implications for greater cardiovascular risk

The relationship between abdominal obesity and depression in the general population: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…As a result of the coding process, a further 15 articles were excluded. These included 1 study that examined the longitudinal effect of abdominal obesity on depression among adolescents [27], 1 article was a conference poster which did not provide author contact details [28], the other 9 articles were those for which the authors did not respond to the request for further data [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37], 1 article reporting gender-stratified correlation coefficients only and a pooled result could not be calculated due to heterogeneity between subsamples [38], and 3 articles that were multiple reports from one study sample [39][40][41]. Among the 22 articles left from this procedure, it was decided the 3 prospective studies [42][43][44] were not included for review due to the small number of studies and heterogeneity among them.…”

Lithium inhibits Smad3/4 transactivation via increased CREB activity induced by enhanced PKA and AKT signaling

“…Many reports indicate an involvement of the tPA-plasmin system in synaptic plasticity and remodeling (Baranes et al, 1998;Fiumelli et al, 1999;Neuhoff et al, 1999), control of the direction of BDNF's functions (Martinowich et al, 2007), regulation of long-term potentiation (Pang et al, 2004), pathophysiology of mood disorders (Eskandari et al, 2005;Tsai, 2006) and stress-induced anxiety . The neurotrophic effects of lithium in stressinduced hippocampal atrophy and antidepressant effects of this drug in rodent models (Wood et al, 2004;O'Brien et al, 2004) suggest a critical role of BDNF in these lithium-induced actions (reviewed in Chuang, 2004).…”

“…These effects of lithium likely result from the fine tuning and cross-talk of four pathways: Smad/TGF-β, CRE-dependent, cAMP-PKA and PI3-K-AKT-GSK-3β signalings. The TGF-β signaling pathway has been implicated as a therapeutic target in neurodegeneration (WyssCoray, 2006), and the PAI-1-tPA-plasmin system has also been suggested to play a critical role in the pathogenesis of mood disorders (Eskandari et al, 2005;Higgins, 2006;Tsai, 2006). Thus, further elucidation of the molecular details involved in lithium-induced regulation of Smad/TGF-β signaling will advance our understanding of the neuroprotective and therapeutic mechanisms of this drug.…”

“…Smad3/4 has a prominent role in regulating the expression of proteins involved in neuronal survival/death, differentiation, and plasticity (reviewed in Sanyal et al, 2004;Gomes et al, 2005). One of the Smad3/4-regulated protein targets is plasminogen activator inhibitor type-1 (PAI-1, also referred to as Serp1), which binds and inactivates tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA), a multifaceted protein implicated in neurite outgrowth (Krystosek and Seeds, 1981), neuronal migration (Moonen et al, 1982;Seeds et al, 1999), learning (Qian et al, 1993;Seeds et al, 1995), excitotoxicity (Tsirka et al, 1995), synaptic plasticity (Baranes et al, 1998;Fiumelli et al, 1999;Neuhoff et al, 1999), stress response , and pathogenesis of mood disorders (Eskandari et al, 2005;Tsai, 2006). Using small interfering RNA (siRNA) and dominant negative mutants specific to GSK-3α and GSK-3β, we recently reported that GSK-3α inhibition causes an upregulation of Smad3/4-dependent transactivation and PAI-1 protein levels, while inhibition of GSK-3β induces a downregulation of Smad3/4 transactivation and PAI-1 expression (Liang and Chuang, 2006).…”

Adrenal gland volume, intra-abdominal and pericardial adipose tissue in major depressive disorder

“…In detail, enlarged adrenal gland volume has been found in three case-control studies (Kessing et al, 2011), and most although not all cross-sectional studies have reported increased volumes of intra-abdominal adipose tissue in patients with major depression using imaging technology (Eskandari et al, 2005;Everson-Rose et al, 2009;Greggersen et al, 2011;Kim et al, 2011a,b;Krishnamurthy et al, 2008;Ludescher et al, 2008;Weber-Hamann et al, 2002;Williams et al, 2009). One study reported increased PAT in depression so far .…”