Depression gets old fast: do stress and depression accelerate cell aging?
✍ Scribed by Owen M. Wolkowitz; Elissa S. Epel; Victor I. Reus; Synthia H. Mellon
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2010
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 158 KB
- Volume
- 27
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1091-4269
- DOI
- 10.1002/da.20686
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Depression has been likened to a state of ''accelerated aging,'' and depressed individuals have a higher incidence of various diseases of aging, such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome, and dementia. Chronic exposure to certain interlinked biochemical pathways that mediate stress-related depression may contribute to ''accelerated aging,'' cell damage, and certain comorbid medical illnesses. Biochemical mediators explored in this theoretical review include the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (e.g., hyperor hypoactivation of glucocorticoid receptors), neurosteroids, such as dehydroepiandrosterone and allopregnanolone, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, excitotoxicity, oxidative and inflammatory stress, and disturbances of the telomere/telomerase maintenance system. A better appreciation of the role of these mediators in depressive illness could lead to refined models of depression, to a re-conceptualization of depression as a whole body disease rather than just a ''mental illness,'' and to the rational development of new classes of medications to treat depression and its related medical comorbidities. Depression and Anxiety 27:327-338, 2010.