ArticleTranslational psychiatry2019
Investigating the association between body fat and depression via Mendelian randomization.
Article in Translational psychiatry, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 81 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
81 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 148 citations in OpenAlex.
- Longitudinal association between cardiovascular risk factors and depression in young people: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies.Psychological medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Body mass index interacts with a genetic-risk score for depression increasing the risk of the disease in high-susceptibility individuals.Translational psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Effects of Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Depression on Cardiopulmonary and Abdominal Organ Structure.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Genetic clusters of BMI reveal symptom-specific causal effects on depression.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Visceral Adiposity Is Associated with Elevated Interleukin-1 Receptor Antagonist Levels and Anxiety Symptoms in Schizophrenia.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- METEOR: a data-adaptive Mendelian randomization method for powerful detection of shared and specific exposures underlying multiple outcomes.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2026Article
- Association Between Body Mass Index and Depression/Anxiety in an East Asian Population: A Mendelian Randomization Study.The Kaohsiung journal of medical sciences · 2026Article
- Association Between Visceral Adipose Tissue and Depression Risk With Both Observational and Genetic Evidence.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Article
- Food Addiction Is Strongly Associated With Psychopathology and Reduced Psychological Well-Being Among Adults Irrespective of BMI.European eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association · 2026Article
- Sodium-Glucose Cotransporter-2 Inhibitors in Mood Disorders: A Narrative Review of Mechanisms, Evidence, and Challenges.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2026Review
- Genetic associations and candidate functional genes linking depression and obesity: a multi-omics integrative study.Frontiers in genetics · 2026Article
- Identification of Potential Key Biomarkers for Comorbid Depression and Obesity Through Integrated Bioinformatics Analysis and Experimental Verification.Journal of inflammation research · 2026Article
- Associations Between the Severity of Sarcopenia and Health-Related Quality of Life in Older Adults.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- The allostatic triage model of psychopathology (ATP Model): How reallocation of brain energetic resources under stress elicits psychiatric symptoms.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- Association between fat-to-muscle mass ratio and depressive symptoms in U.S. adults: evidence from a nationally representative cross-sectional study.European journal of medical research · 2025Article
- Genetic susceptibility to depression and risk of cardiometabolic diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 21 Mendelian randomisation studies.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Article
- Investigating the visceral adiposity-major depressive disorder link: a cross-sectional NHANES 2011-2014 analysis and Mendelian randomization study.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2025Article
- Modeling the genomic architecture of adiposity and anthropometrics across the lifespan.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Association Between Stress-Induced Weight Loss and Autophagy-Related Gene Expression in the Hippocampus and Midbrain of Depression Model Mice.Neuropsychopharmacology reports · 2025Article
21 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Obesity and depression are major public health concerns that are both associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. There is a considerable body of literature linking obesity to the development of depression. Recent studies using Mendelian randomization indicate that this relationship is causal. Most studies of the obesity-depression association have used body mass index as a measure of obesity. Body mass index is defined as weight (measured in kilograms) divided by the square of height (meters) and therefore does not distinguish between the contributions of fat and nonfat to body weight. To better understand the obesity-depression association, we conduct a Mendelian randomization study of the relationship between fat mass, nonfat mass, height, and depression, using genome-wide association study results from the UK Biobank (n = 332,000) and the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (n = 480,000). Our findings suggest that both fat mass and height (short stature) are causal risk factors for depression, while nonfat mass is not. These results represent important new knowledge on the role of anthropometric measures in the etiology of depression. They also suggest that reducing fat mass will decrease the risk of depression, which lends further support to public health measures aimed at reducing the obesity epidemic.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.