Bone loss in women pre- and post-menopause is a serious clinical condition affecting a reasonably large proportion of the general public. Depression is a compounding condition that has been shown to accentuate pathways leading to bone loss and suggesting a mind-body connection. The POWER study conducted at the NIH Clinical Center is designed to study the interactions of depression and severity of osteoporosis in pre-menopausal women. The DBEPS Ultramicro Analytical Immunochemistry Resource has undertaken to develop a panel of analytical techniques (recycling immunoaffinity chromatography [RIC]; immunoaffinity microarrays; immunoaffinity capillary electrophoresis [ICE]) to study a number of different systemic pathways that possibly may be involved in the connection between osteoporosis and depression. To date cohorts of both normal and depressed age-matched women have been recruited into the study. The study is ongoing, and although many potentially interesting findings have arisen, the cohorts are double-blinded and the codes will not be broken until the end of the recruitment phase.
| Hartman, Jill; Berger, Ann; Baker, Karen et al. (2006) Quality of life and pain in premenopausal women with major depressive disorder: The POWER Study. Health Qual Life Outcomes 4:2 |
| Marques-Deak, Andrea; Cizza, Giovanni; Eskandari, Farideh et al. (2006) Measurement of cytokines in sweat patches and plasma in healthy women: validation in a controlled study. J Immunol Methods 315:99-109 |
