Metabolically healthy obesity and depressive symptoms: 16-year follow-up of the Gazel cohort study.

The health correlates of the metabolically healthy obese (MHO) phenotype, particularly in relation to depressive symptoms remains unclear. Accordingly, we examined the risk of depressive symptoms in this phenotype using a 16-year follow-up prospective study.A sample of 14 475 participants (75% men), aged 44-59 years in 1996, was drawn from the Gazel cohort. Obesity was defined as body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 kg/m2 and metabolic health as having none of the self-reported following cardiovascular risk factors: hypertension, type 2 diabetes and dyslipidemia. Depressive symptoms were assessed by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale in 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2012. Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) were used to estimate the risk of depressive symptoms during a follow-up of 16 years.In multivariate analyses, metabolically unhealthy normal weight [Odds Ratio (OR) = 1.37; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.25-1.51], overweight [1.44 (1.31-1.59)] and obese [1.30 (1.10-1.54)] but not MHO participants [1.04 (0.81-1.32)] had higher risk of depressive symptoms at the start of follow-up compared to metabolically healthy normal weight individuals. Depressive symptoms decreased over time in metabolically healthy normal weight individuals [0.52 (0.50-0.55)], this decrease was less marked only in metabolically unhealthy obese participants [1.22 (1.07-1.40)]. Compared to MHO participants, metabolically unhealthy obese individuals were at increased risk of depression at the start of follow-up, but with a similar reduction of this risk over time.Poor metabolic health, irrespective of BMI was associated with greater depressive symptoms at the start of follow-up, whereas a poorer course of depressive symptoms over time was observed only in those with both obesity and poor metabolic health.