Background: To investigate the incidence of anxiety and depressive disorders in young adults with obesity and the correlation between the severity of these disorders and hypothalamic inflammation.
Methods: The severity of anxiety and depressive disorders was assessed using the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), respectively. Hypothalamic inflammation was evaluated by measuring the hypothalamus/amygdala (H/A) signal intensity (SI) ratio in T2-weighted phase quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Results: The incidence of depressive disorders in young (18-45 years) patients with obesity (n=66) was higher than that in the control group (n=44); anxiety disorder incidence did not differ significantly between groups. The bilateral H/A SI ratio in the obesity group was significantly higher than that in the control group. In the obesity group, there was no significant correlation between bilateral H/A SI ratio and body mass index (BMI) (right: r=-0.145, P=0.721; left: r=0.102, P=0.415) or SAS scores (right: r=-0.118, P=0.444; left: r=-0.295, P=0.052); SDS scores were significantly correlated with left H/A SI ratio (r=-0.353, P=0.019), but not right H/A SI ratio (r=-0.031, P=0.843).
Conclusions: Patients with obesity had a higher incidence of depressive disorders. Left hypothalamus inflammation may be one of the links between obesity and depressive disorders.
Keywords: Anxiety; depression; hypothalamic inflammation; obesity.