Vitamin D concentration and its association with past, current and future depression in older men: The Health In Men Study.

What Was Tested

This observational study looks at Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 3105 men taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as older adults and people over 80, men only.

Observational study examining the retrospective, cross-sectional and prospective associations between vitamin D concentration and depressed mood in a community-derived sample of 3105 older men living in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia.

Incident depression was established by a patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) score ≥ 10 or by administrative health data linkage during the 6-year follow up (range 0.1-10.9 years).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers measured the plasma concentration of 25-hydroxyvitamin D using standard procedures.

Past depression was ascertained by direct questioning and through the use of administrative health data linkage.

A geriatric depression scale score equal or greater 7/15 established the presence of current depression.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Cross-Sectional Studies, Depression, Incidence, Odds Ratio, Prevalence, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales and Vitamin D.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Ageing, Epidemiology, Mental health and Risk factors.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is an observational study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 3105 men.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2015 (Maturitas), a journal based in Ireland.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.