Carrying 10 kilograms of fat increases the risk of depression

A new Danish study has warned that carrying 10 kilograms of excess body fat increases the risk of depression.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Danish University of Aarhus, published its findings in the latest issue of the journal Translational Psychiatry.

The BMI, which examines the relationship between body height and weight and is often used to measure obesity, is not accurate because it does not take into account, for example, body mass and muscle mass, the researchers said.

In the new study, the researchers analyzed data from the British Biobank, which contains data on the relationship between genetic variables and physical measurements including body fat mass distributed around parts of the body, as well as data from the Psychiatric Genome Federation of Britain, which contains information on The relationship between genetic variables and depression.

The researchers found that increasing the proportion of body fat about 10 kilograms increase the incidence of depression to 17%, and the higher the proportion of fat the greater the incidence of depression.

Fats
"Our study reveals that excess body fat is a risk regardless of where it is located. The risk does not stop at just the amount of fat in the waistline," said lead researcher Dr Sorn Dinson Ostergard.

It is the psychological consequences of overweight or obesity that lead to an increased risk of depression, as it has the most biologically damaging effect.

In addition to the well-known physical consequences of obesity, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, there is also an important and well-documented psychological component that must also be addressed, which is depression, another argument for the obesity epidemic, he said.