Abstract
BACKGROUND: Depression is a well-known co-morbidity of coronary heart disease (CHD) and these two diseases share common risk mechanisms. Here, the aim of this study was to investigate the possible link between energy homeostasis regulation and CHD patients comorbid with depression. METHODS: Two hundred and nine CHD patients and 101 matched healthy individuals were included. Demographic, clinical data were collected, serum irisin, adropin, preptin and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels were determined by a double-antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA), and the depression was scored by Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Correlation analysis as well as multiple linear regression was used to assess the relationship between the three peptides, BDNF serum levels and PHQ-9 scores. RESULTS: Irisin serum level was significantly lower in CHD patients without depression as compared with healthy controls (P=0.002), as well as adropin (P=0.000), preptin (P=0.000) and BDNF (P=0.000). Furthermore, similar trends were observed in CHD patients with depression in terms of irisin, adropin and BDNF as compared with CHD patients without depression (P=0.006; P=0.003; P=0.002; respectively). Multiple logistic regression results confirmed the contribution of irisin and BDNF to the occurrence of depression in CHD. Interestingly, correlations analysis revealed significant negative correlations between PHQ-9 scores and irisin, adropin, BDNF level (r=-0.43, P<0.01; r=-0.29, P<0.05; r=-0.45, P<0.001 respectively), and irisin serum level was positively correlated with BDNF (r=0.38, P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Our study firstly identified the role of energy homeostasis in the susceptibility to depression in CHD patients, and the interaction between irisin and BDNF could trigger the imbalance of energy homeostasis that occurs in depression of CHD patients.