Lower creatinine was associated with an increased risk of depression: evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study

Fajin Liu ¹ Xiaogang Zhong ² Cuiting Wang ^1*

• ¹ Affiliated Rehabilitation Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
• ² First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, Chongqing Municipality, China

Introduction: Previous studies found the depressive patients owed a low level of creatinine, while, whether and to what extent the creatinine level associated with depression was poorly investigated.Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the creatinine level and depression.The participants and follow-up data of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), metabolomics data of Metabolite Network of Depression Database (MENDA) were collected. The 10-items Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-10) was used to assess the severity of depression. Spearman correlation analysis, spline regression and binary logistic regression model was used to explore the relationship between the creatinine level and depression.Results: A total of 7826 participants, and 3886 follow-up participants were included from the CHARLS 2011 and 2015. There were 37.9% (2966/7826) and 34.6% (1344/3886) of participants experienced depression in CHARLS 2011 and 2015, respectively. Creatinine level was negatively correlated with the total CESD-10 score and dimensions score, and there was an inversely dose-response between the creatinine level and depression. Compared with the high level of creatinine participants, the middle level of creatinine participants was associated with a higher risk of depression (OR=1.22, 95% CI=1.08-1.38); the low level of creatinine participants was associated with the highest risk of depression (OR=1.30, 95% CI=1.13-1.49) in the fully adjusted model. The follow-up data displayed the similar results, and the MENDA metabolomics data validated the negatively correlation between the creatinine level and severity of depression.Lower levels of creatinine was closely related to higher risk of depression, and it could be a potential marker for identification of individuals with high risk of depression.