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Objectives: Individuals with late-life depression (LLD) may have shorter survival, but there is a lack of findings in population-based settings about health-related outcomes of LLD and its subtypes: early-onset depression (EOD) and late-onset depression (LOD). We aimed to evaluate the risk of all-cause mortality of individuals with LLD and its subtypes in an older population-based cohort. Moreover, we investigated whether inflammatory, cognitive, genetic features and multimorbidity could modify the effect of this association., Design: Longitudinal population-based study with 8-year follow-up., Setting and Participants: We analyzed data on a sample of 1479 participants, all aged >65 years, in the Salus in Apulia Study., Methods: LLD was diagnosed through DSM-IV-TR criteria and LOD and EOD according to the age of onset. Multimorbidity status was defined as the copresence of 2 or more chronic diseases., Results: The overall prevalence of LLD in this older sample from Southern Italy was 10.2%, subdivided into 3.4% EOD and 6.8% LOD. In multivariable Cox models adjusted for age, gender, education, global cognition, apolipoprotein E ε4 allele, physical frailty, interleukin-6, and multimorbidity, LLD showed a greater risk of all-cause mortality. LOD differed from EOD regarding gender, education, cognitive dysfunctions, and diabetes mellitus. There was a significantly increased risk of all-cause mortality for participants with LOD (hazard ratio:1.99; 95% CI 1.33-2.97) in the time of observation between enrollment date and death date (7.31 ± 2.17 months)., Conclusions and Implication: In older age, individuals with LOD but not with EOD had a significantly decreased survival, probably related to increased inflammation, multimorbidity, and cognitive impairments., (Copyright © 2022 AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: the possible relationship between dietary habits and the incidence of late-onset depression (LOD), defined as first depression onset at later age, is unclear., Objective: to investigate the relationship between consumption of different food groups and incident LOD., Design: longitudinal population-based study with a 12-year follow-up., Setting: Castellana Grotte, Bari, Italy., Subjects: five hundred and forty-six older subjects from the Salus in Apulia Study., Methods: baseline data were recorded in 2003-06, and diagnostic data were recorded in 2013-18 at follow-up. Dietary intake was assessed with a food frequency questionnaire. Depressive disorders were assessed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders. Subjects who already suffered from depression or other psychiatric disorders at baseline were excluded from the analysis. The association between LOD and single dietary determinants was examined by Cox regression analysis and then applying the hazard ratio (HR)., Results: subjects with incident LOD (n = 34) had lower global cognition and total cholesterol levels and a higher body mass index (BMI) at baseline. Only processed meat significantly increased the risk of incident LOD of about 10% by 5 g/day intake (HR adjusted for age, sex, education, multimorbidity and BMI: 1.13, 95% confidence intervals: 1.04-1.22). A similar relationship was found for single foods in the processed meat food group such as sausages, salami and mortadella and baked ham, but not for raw ham., Conclusions: in midlife, a higher intake of processed meat was not only associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular- and metabolic-related chronic diseases in older age but also with an increased risk of developing LOD., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)