Depression and cardiometabolic abnormalities are independently associated with a high risk of dementia. This study aimed to examine the association of comorbid depressive symptoms and cardiometabolic abnormalities with risk of dementia.

The sample comprised 4859 participants aged 50 or older without baseline dementia who took part in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (Waves 2-7). Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression tool. Cardiometabolic abnormalities were defined as three or more cardiometabolic risk factors (inflammation, central obesity, raised triglycerides, low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, hypertension and hyperglycaemia or diabetes). Participants were classified into four groups based on presence of depressive symptoms and cardiometabolic abnormalities. Results were analysed using Cox Proportional Hazards Regression adjusted for covariates.

A total of 216 cases of incident dementia were reported over 10 years of follow-up. The group with high depressive symptoms only had an increased hazard of developing incident dementia during follow-up (HR 2.68, 95% CI [1.70 - 4.23]) which was attenuated after adjustment for baseline cognition. No evidence was found for an association of overall cardiometabolic abnormalities with incident dementia, though hyperglycaemia, hypertension and abdominal obesity with depressive symptoms had an unadjusted association with incident dementia. Only low-HDL cholesterol with depressive symptoms had an adjusted association with incident dementia (HR 0.18: 95% CI [0.04 – 0.75]).

This work confirms depressive symptoms as a risk factor for incident dementia. However, low HDL-cholesterol with depressive symptoms may be protective against dementia, though more work is required to confirm this association.