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Cortisol and social functioning interact to cause depression Hypercortisolemia appears to be a predisposing factor for low levels of social functioning, which in turn increases the risk of depression, UK investigators reveal. "Both elevated cortisol secretion and low social support have been commonly found in depressed patients, but their respective roles in depression remain unclear," comment Wai Tse and Alyson Bond from King's College London. To investigate the issue further, the team used mediation analysis to study the interrelationships in 60 healthy volunteers. Depression and social functioning were measured on the Beck Depression Inventory and the Social Adaptation Self-evaluation Scale, respectively. Saliva samples were taken to determine cortisol levels. The results showed that cortisol was significantly associated with both depression and social functioning. Moreover, when analysis included both social functioning and cortisol as independent variables, only social functioning scores were significantly related to depression scores. "The present findings support the model that poor social functioning is the mediator and elevated cortisol secretion is the predisposing factor in depression," the team writes in the journal Psychiatry Research. "Thus... elevated basal cortisol might lead to the development of depression via mediation of social functioning deficits." Tse and Bond conclude that the findings expand the understanding
of how elevated cortisol levels can interact with poor social functioning
to lead to an increased risk of depression under the biopsychological
model of depression. |
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