Association between changes in muscle strength and risk of depressive symptoms among female college students in China: a prospective cohort study.

 Cao J, Zhao F, Ren Z (2021) Association between changes in muscle strength and risk of depressive symptoms among female college students in China: a prospective cohort study. Front. Public Health 9: 616750. doi: 10.3389 / fpubh.2021.616750

Commentary

This study was to investigate the association between muscle strength and the development of depressive symptoms.

Muscular strength may be a predictor of depressive symptoms in the elderly, and the study examined the association between changes in grip strength and the risk of developing depressive symptoms in Chinese female college students.

Grip strength was used as a representative measure of skeletal muscle strength, and a handheld digital Smedley dynamometer was applied to measure grip strength. Depression was then assessed using the 20-item Zung self-rated depression scale, with scores above 50 indicating moderate to severe depressive symptoms.

As a result, the incidence of depressive symptoms was found to be 10.7% during the one-year follow-up period. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that the multivariate adjusted OR (95% CI) for depressive symptoms in the category of grip strength change was 1. (p = 0.018) This study showed that change in grip strength level over one year was negatively associated with the risk of depressive symptoms among female college students in China.

We have to be careful how we view the results of the study, but could there be a link between a decline in grip strength and the development of depressive symptoms? We should be careful how we interpret the results of the study.