Abstract
Background: Little is known about the relationships between muscle strength and nutritional health risk with late-in-life depression. This study aimed to investigate the moderating effect of lower-extremity muscle strength on the relationship between nutritional health risk and depression in Korean older adults. Methods: Data obtained from 5949 women and 3971 men aged ≥ 65 years in the 2020 Korea Longitudinal Study on Aging were used in this study. Exposures included lower-extremity muscle strength and nutritional health risk. Lower-extremity muscle strength was measured with a modified sit-to-stand test. The nutritional health risk was assessed using a screening tool. Depression was defined as a score ≥ 8 points on the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). Results: Logistic regression analyses showed that depression was positively associated with nutritional health risk (p < 0.001) and inversely associated with lower-extremity muscle strength (p < 0.001). A moderation analysis with Andrew Hayes’ PROCESS macro showed a significant moderating effect of lower-extremity muscle strength (β = −0.119; 95% confidence interval, −0.172 to −0.066; p < 0.001) on the relationship between nutritional health risk and depression; the weaker was the muscle strength, the steeper was the slope of the GDS score for nutritional health risk. Conclusions: The current findings suggest the need for an intervention targeting both high nutritional risk and weak muscle strength as a therapeutic strategy against depression in Korean older adults.
Highlights
Depression is a serious mental disorder, affecting 3.8% of the global population, and is a leading cause of disability worldwide, representing an important contributor to the global burden of diseases
Moderate (OR, 1.772; 95% confidence intervals (CIs), 1.472–2.133) and high (OR, 7.703; 95% CI, 6.450–9.199) nutritional health risks were significantly associated with greater odds for depression, compared with good health (OR, 1)
With respect to lower-extremity muscle strength, weak muscle strength was significantly associated with greater odds for depression (OR, 2.412; 95% CI, 2.060–2.824), compared with strong muscle strength (OR, 1)
Summary
Depression is a serious mental disorder, affecting 3.8% of the global population, and is a leading cause of disability worldwide, representing an important contributor to the global burden of diseases (https://www.who.int/health-topics/depression/ accessed on 1 November 2021). Weak muscle strength is associated with an increased risk of late-in-life depression in Western [10] and Asian [14] older adults. This study aimed to investigate the moderating effect of lower-extremity muscle strength on the relationship between nutritional health risk and depression in Korean older adults. A moderation analysis with Andrew Hayes’ PROCESS macro showed a significant moderating effect of lower-extremity muscle strength (β = −0.119; 95% confidence interval, −0.172 to −0.066; p < 0.001) on the relationship between nutritional health risk and depression; the weaker was the muscle strength, the steeper was the slope of the GDS score for nutritional health risk. Conclusions: The current findings suggest the need for an intervention targeting both high nutritional risk and weak muscle strength as a therapeutic strategy against depression in Korean older adults
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