Medical researchers have uncovered a link between depression and the bone-consuming disease osteoporosis and have calculated that a third of the women who had experienced major depression had bones as brittle as an older person. Their study, which compared 24 women who had suffered from depression at some point in their lives with 24 who had not, found that the bone density of women with a history of depression was as much as 13.6 percent lower, depending on which bones were measured. Since major depression affects 5 to 9 percent of women and a 10 percent decline in the density of the bones can lead to a 40 percent increase in hip fractures, the discovery of a link between depression and osteoporosis has important public health implications. The reason bones become more brittle in women who have experienced a serious bout of depression is unclear. Drugs that treat depression may have an effect on the bones, or there may be some element of the mental illness itself that interferes with the growth of bones.
Depression is known to affect the physical body, such as reducing the amount of growth hormone.
It can also produce other hormone or nutrition problems. Hormones, particularly estrogen, can affect the rate of bone growth and destruction. Other studies have shown that people who have suffered from schizophrenia and other mental disorders also have weaker bones. The Michelson group said that although anti-depression drugs may be weakening the bones, their study did not support such a link. The women who had taken depression-fighting drugs the longest did not tend to have the brittlest bones.