High BMI Score and Depression Treatment

First published in Psychiatry Weekly, Volume 2, Issue 33, on August 27, 2007

A study out of Germany, published in Biological Psychiatry, examined the possible effects of obesity on the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) in 408 MDD patients. Psychopathology and anthropometric parameters were monitored in 230 patients on a weekly basis, with 1,029 diagnosed control patients serving as morphometric comparisons. Researchers found that patients with MDD had a significantly higher body mass index (BMI) than healthy controls. High BMI scores (≥25) also predicted a significantly slower response to antidepressant treatment than did normal BMI scores (18.5-24.9). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez

-LS