A comparative study of total body fat percentage, visceral fat percentage and whole body subcutaneous and skeletal fat percentage between patients with depression and normal subjects

Background: In today’s world, depression has been named as the foremost public health problem while obesity has reached epidemic proportions in India in the 21st century. A probable association between depression and obesity has been suspected. The quantification of obesity, can be done by various methods such as body mass index (BMI), bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) etc. Among these, BMI and BIA have emerged as well accepted techniques. From impedance measurement values and other data such as a person’s height, weight and body types, it is possible to calculate the percentage of body fat, fat-free mass (skeletal muscles), and other body composition values. Methods: This was an analytical cross-sectional study. Cases comprised of subjects who were diagnosed with depression but were ‘drug naive’ while the control group comprised of age-matched subjects drawn from the normal population. Measurement of various anthropometric parameters like BMI, total body fat (TBF) %, visceral fat % etc. was carried out among the cases and controls using a portable body fat monitor scan that employed BIA. Results: BMI, TBF%, visceral fat %, whole body subcutaneous and skeletal fat % were found to be much higher among the cases (subjects with depression) in comparison with the controls (normal subjects), in a statistically significant way. Conclusions: The study showed that the intrinsic inflammatory potential of obesity coupled with its probable dysregulatory impact on the (hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal) HPA axis was possibly the underlying cause of the elevated anthropometric parameters noted among the cases.