ArticleThe Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism2023
Causal Association Between Obesity, Circulating Glutamine Levels, and Depression: A Mendelian Randomization Study.
Article in The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 61 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sleep traits and physical activity mediate the causal association between depression and age-related diseases.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Impact of Elevated Body Mass Index (BMI) on Hedonic Tone in Persons with Post-COVID-19 Condition: A Secondary Analysis.Advances in therapy · 2024Trial
- Glutamine metabolism in health and disease.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2026Review
- Psychotropic drug-induced weight gain and untargeted metabolomics: machine learning-driven results from a prospective cohort study.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Multimodal fusion of brain imaging and proteomics reveals a brain-body pathway linking depression and metabolic dysfunction.Psychological medicine · 2026Article
- Causal effects of gut microbiota and blood metabolites on subtypes of perinatal depression classified based on depressive symptom trajectories: a mendelian randomization study.Nutrition & metabolism · 2026Article
- Residential green space, air pollution, and related metabolites in association with depression among cancer survivors.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Mediating role of the weight-adjusted-waist index in the association between sedentary behavior and depression: A cross-sectional study.Global medical genetics · 2026Article
- Increased mortality risk with lower versus higher BMI in older adults with T2DM: a Shanghai diabetes management cohort study.BMC geriatrics · 2026Article
- Electroacupuncture alleviates comorbid obesity and depression via the gut-brain axis: orchestrating SCFA-producing bacteria and hippocampal synaptic plasticity.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Anhedonia nonresponse to short-term ketamine administration for treatment-resistant bipolar depression.Therapeutic advances in psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Fat-brain axis indicated by mutual impacts between body fat and brain phenotypes.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Article
- Genetic susceptibility to depression and risk of cardiometabolic diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 21 Mendelian randomisation studies.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Article
- Moderate and severe depression increase the incidence of cholelithiasis: Results from Mendelian randomization study and the NHANES 2017-March 2020.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Observational
- Obesity-depression-metabolism triad: amplification of cardiometabolic multimorbidity risk in Chinese adults (CHARLS 2011-2018).Lipids in health and disease · 2025Article
- NHANES 2005-2018 data reveal high albumin-bilirubin scores are associated with depression.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Transdermal Semaglutide Administration in Mice: Reduces Body Weight by Suppressing Appetite and Enhancing Metabolic Rate.Biology · 2025Article
- Adherence to the Mediterranean diet and risk of anxiety and depression in people with obesity: a cross-sectional analysis.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2025Article
- Revealing the Causal Relationship Between Differential White Blood Cell Counts and Depression: A Bidirectional Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study.Depression and anxiety · 2025Article
- Fasting blood glucose mediated the association between a body shape index and depression: a cross sectional study from NHANES 2017-2023.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
contextObservational studies indicated obesity and glutamatergic dysfunction as potential risk factors of depression, and reported disturbance of glutamine metabolism in obese state. However, it remains unclear whether the interrelationships between obesity, glutamine, and depression are causal.
objectiveWe conducted 2-sample bidirectional mendelian randomization (MR) analyses to explore the causalities between circulating glutamine levels, specific depressive symptoms, major depressive disorder (MDD), and body mass index (BMI).
methodsUnivariable MR, multivariable MR (MVMR), and linkage disequilibrium score regression (LDSR) analyses were performed.
resultsGenetic downregulation of glutamine was causally associated with MDD, anhedonia, tiredness, and depressed mood at the false discovery rate (FDR)-controlled significance level (estimate, -0.036 ∼ -0.013; P = .005 to P = .050). Elevated BMI was causally linked to lower glutamine level (estimate, -0.103; P = .037), as well as more severe depressed mood, tiredness, and anhedonia (estimate, 0.017 ∼ 0.050; P < .001 to P = .040). In MVMR analysis, BMI was causally related to depressed mood dependently of glutamine levels. Conversely, it showed limited evidence supporting causal effects of depression on glutamine levels or BMI, except a causal association of tiredness with elevated BMI (estimate, 0.309; P = .003). LDSR estimates were directionally consistent with MR results.
conclusionThe present study reported that higher BMI was causally associated with lower glutamine levels. Both obesity and downregulation of glutamine were causally linked to depression.
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