Association between self-reported medical diagnosis of depression and metabolic syndrome in a population-based study: A propensity score-matched analysis.

It was cross-sectional, so it cannot show whether depression came before metabolic syndrome or vice versa. Depression was based on self-reported doctor diagnosis, not medical records or medication review, so it may be under-reported or inaccurate. The analysis used only variables available in the survey, so factors such as diet quality, medication details and psychiatric severity were not fully controlled. The final matched sample was 494 adults, and matching with replacement allowed some control participants to be used more than once, so the matched pairs were not all independent observations. Participants were Korean adults aged 19 to 64, so results may not apply to older adults or other countries.

The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The work was supported by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.

Do not read this as evidence that depression causes metabolic syndrome or that treating depression will lower metabolic risk. The main composite metabolic syndrome outcome was not significant after matching, and the study is cross-sectional with self-reported diagnosis.