Abstract
Objective
To examine the associations between urinary antibiotics from various sources and depression in the elderly using the biomonitoring method.
Methods
In the current study, we investigated 990 elderly individuals (≥ 60 years old) from a community-based elderly cohort in West Anhui, China. The participants were interviewed by the Geriatric Depression Scale and self-developed questionnaires. A total of 45 antibiotics belonging to nine categories were screened in urine samples by the developed liquid chromatography electrospray tandem mass spectrometry method. Creatinine-corrected concentrations of antibiotics in urines were used to assess their exposure. Logistic regression analysis was employed to test the relationships between exposure to antibiotics and depression.
Results
Compared to the control group, the multinomial logistic regression analyses showed the elderly exposed to higher concentrations of azithromycin (OR = 1.81, 95% CI: 1.09–3.00) and sulfaclozine (OR = 1.54, 95% CI: 1.05–2.28) had increased risks of depression, respectively. After categorizing the detected antibiotics, tetracyclines (OR = 1.48, 95% CI: 1.02–2.16) and veterinary antibiotics (VAs) (OR = 1.53, 95% CI: 1.06–2.20) were positively correlated with increased risks of depression. After stratified by sex, the VAs (OR = 2.04, 95% CI: 1.13–3.71) at higher concentrations were associated with elevated risks of depression in males, while the associations between depression and antibiotic exposures were observed in tetracyclines (OR = 1.74, 95% CI: 1.04–2.85) and all antibiotics (OR = 2.24, 95% CI: 1.01–2.94) at higher levels in females, respectively. Notably, after the stratification by age, the significant associations were mainly present in the subjects under the age of 70.
Conclusions
Our findings reveal that azithromycin, sulfaclozine, tetracyclines, and the VAs were significantly associated with elevated risks of depression in the elderly. Importantly, sex- and age-specific differences were observed in the associations between antibiotic exposures and depression.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to the privacy of the research group, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all the staff and students who made contributions to the cohort study. We thank all the study participants for their support. We are deeply grateful for the help provided by all the members (Guanjun Chen, Sheng Wang and Shulong Li) in the Center for Scientific Research of Anhui Medical University. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82073558), the Key Projects of Natural Science Research in Colleges and Universities of Anhui province (KJ2018A0164), and the Major Projects on College Leading Talent Team Introduced of Anhui (0303011224). We are deeply grateful for the help provided by all the members in the experimental center platform for physical and chemical of Anhui Medical University.
Funding
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82073558), the Key Projects of Natural Science Research in Colleges and Universities of Anhui province (KJ2018A0164), and Major Projects on College Leading Talent Team Introduced of Anhui (0303011224).
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Xinji Liu: formal analysis, data curation, writing—Original Draft. Jingjing Zhang: data curation, writing—review and editing. Kaiyong Liu: investigation, conceptualization, methodology, supervision. Yanru Sang: investigation, resources. Yitian Zhu: investigation, resources. Linsheng Yang: investigation, resources. Sufang Wang: investigation, resources. Jie Sheng: investigation, resources. Qunan Wang: investigation, resources. Dongmei Zhang: investigation, resources. Hongjuan Cao: investigation, resources. Fangbiao Tao: validation, conceptualization, supervision.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Anhui Medical University (No. 20170284). Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Liu, X., Zhang, J., Sang, Y. et al. Antibiotic exposure and potential risk of depression in the Chinese elderly: a biomonitoring-based population study. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 26794–26806 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12560-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12560-2