No association of depression and anxiety with the metabolic syndrome: the Norwegian HUNT study

OBJECTIVE: To examine the associations of depression and anxiety with the metabolic syndrome. METHOD: Cross-sectional study of 9571 participants aged 20-89 years in the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT 2). We assessed anxiety and depression with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the metabolic syndrome with the International Diabetes Federation criteria. RESULTS: Despite generous statistical power and use of both continuous and categorical approaches, we found no association between anxiety or depression and the metabolic syndrome in models adjusted for age, gender, educational level, smoking, physical activity and pulse rate. When adjusted for age and gender only, we found a weak positive association for depression when a continuous measure was used, but not at the case level. The findings were similar across sexes, and robust for exclusion of cardiovascular disease and antidepressants. CONCLUSION: In this largest study to date we found no association of anxiety and depression with the metabolic syndrome.