Increased Levels of Serum Glycosylated Hemoglobin are Associated with Depressive Symptoms in a Population with Cancer (≥49 Years): An Antidepressant-Stratified Analysis
Authors: Anwen Liu
Ying Huang
Yilin Xu
Journal: Clinical Interventions in Aging (2021)
Discipline: CLINICAL MEDICINE
Keywords: cancer; depression; glycosylated hemoglobin; middle-aged and elderly.
Affiliations: Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330006, People's Republic of China., Oncology Department, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330006, People's Republic of China.

Abstract:  Purpose: Patients with cancer tend to have a high prevalence of depressive symptoms. The direct relationship between serum glycosylated hemoglobin (GHb) levels and depressive symptoms in cancer patients is still uncertain. We aimed to evaluate the association with serum GHb levels with depressive symptoms in the population (aged ≥49 years) with cancer. Patients and methods: Longitudinal data in 204 participants with cancer obtained from The Irish LongituDinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) were used to investigate the association of serum GHb levels with depressive symptoms. Results: Our results suggested a positive and significant association between serum GHb levels and depression score, independent of age, gender, body mass index (BMI), currently married, education, smoking status, drink alcohol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP), physical activity, self-reported cardiovascular diseases and laboratory measurement in participants with cancer (coefficient =0.141, P&lt;0.001; Model 2) at baseline (wave 1). Higher GHb levels did associate with higher prevalence of depressive symptoms in participants with cancer (OR=2.100, 95% CI 1.105-5.036, P=0.004; Model 2) after adjustment for these same confounding factors in wave 1 was made. Stratified analysis further showed that these significant associations were interfered by antidepressants. Sensitivity analysis showed that higher serum GHb levels in subjects with cancer were linked to higher prevalence of depression events during a follow-up of 4 years. Conclusion: Our results found a significant association between elevated serum GHb levels and increased risk of depressive symptoms in the population aged ≥49 years with cancer after confounding factors were adjusted. 

Retracted: Yes

PubPeer comments:
 Copy pasted from https: retractionwatch.com 2021 07 26 pro-tip-when-claiming-to-use-a-dataset-make-sure-it-collects-what-you-say-it-does :  (....) A third paper, u201cIncreased Levels of Serum Glycosylated Hemoglobin are Associated with Depressive Symptoms in a Population with Cancer (u226549 Years): An Antidepressant-Stratified Analysis,u201d published this year in Clinical Interventions in Aging, has been slated for retraction, too, according to Paul Mahoney, the operations manager for TILDA, based at Trinity College in Dublin. Mahoney told us that of the three retractions, the COPD paper:  was the most flagrantly fraudulent in that it fabricated data (it reported on a biomarker which TILDA does not collect), and it was the main flag and catalyst to check the others; establishing that this and the other articles were in fact fraudulent was possible only for an internal team here with extensive knowledge of the dataset and processes for accessing it u2013 the TILDA R D Manager, Biobank Manager and Data Manager, and a postdoc who took the time to check the papers thoroughly and try to reproduce them. The other papers retracted this week did not fabricate data but misreported them in a variety of ways, e.g. inflation of underpowered sample sizes, unreproducible flow charts. (.....) . See also https: pubpeer.com publications 034AC68E126C60B25CD9844E9AFF8F and https: pubpeer.com publications 253AFA88EB58E38D491FED4EAB4747 ,