The role of inflammation in anxiety and depression in the European U-BIOPRED asthma cohorts.

Background: Growing evidence indicates high comorbid anxiety and depression in patients with asthma. However, the mechanisms underlying this comorbid condition remain unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of inflammation in comorbid anxiety and depression in three asthma patient cohorts of the Unbiased Biomarkers for the Prediction of Respiratory Disease Outcomes (U-BIOPRED) project.
Methods: U-BIOPRED was conducted by a European Union consortium of 16 academic institutions in 11 European countries. A subset dataset from subjects with valid anxiety and depression measures and a large blood biomarker dataset were analysed, including 198 non-smoking patients with severe asthma (SAn), 65 smoking patients with severe asthma (SAs), 61 non-smoking patients with mild-to-moderate asthma (MMA), and 20 healthy non-smokers (HC). The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale was used to measure anxiety and depression and a series of inflammatory markers were analysed by the SomaScan v3 platform (SomaLogic, Boulder, Colo). ANOVA and the Kruskal-Wallis test were used for multiple-group comparisons as appropriate.
Results: There were significant group effects on anxiety and depression among the four cohort groups (p < 0.05). Anxiety and depression of SAn and SAs groups were significantly higher than that of MMA and HC groups (p < 0.05. There were significant differences in serum IL6, MCP1, CCL18, CCL17, IL8, and Eotaxin among the four groups (p < 0.05). Depression was significantly associated with IL6, MCP1, CCL18 level, and CCL17; whereas anxiety was associated with CCL17 only (p < 0.05).
Conclusions: The current study suggests that severe asthma patients are associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression, and inflammatory responses may underlie this comorbid condition.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Professor Hou sits on the ECNP Scientific Advisory Panel and currently holds a grant from Asthma Allergy Inflammation Research charity. Prof. Shaw receives consulting fees from Adherium, Nuvoair, Astra Zeneca and Chiesi. He also receives honoraria from Astra Zeneca and Chiesi and travel support from Chiesi and GSK. Professor Sven-Eric Dahlén declares consulting fees from Astra Zenica, Cayman Chemicals, GSK, Novartis, Regeneron, Sanofi and Teva and honorarium from Sanofi. Dr Barbro Dahlén is in receipt of grants from GSK and Novartis and declares consulting fees from Novartis, Astra Zeneca and Sanofi. She is on the advisory board for Astra Zeneca and Sanofi. Prof. Fowler receives a grant from Boehringer Ingelheim and an honorarium from Chiesi. Prof. Sandstrom received payment for the Boehringer Ingelheim lecture (paid to his institution). Dr Auffrey and Dr De Meulder have both received support for the manuscript from the Innovative Medicines Initiative. Prof. Adcock has received grants from GSK, MRC and EPSRC. He also declares consulting fees from GSK, Sanofi, Chiesi and Kinaset. He has received honoraria from Astra Zeneca, Sanofi, Eurodrug, and Sunovion. He has also received payment for expert testimony from Chiesi and travel support from Astra Zeneca. Prof. Chung is in receipt of grants from MRC, EPSRC and GSK and honoraria from Astra Zeneca and Novartis. He is on the advisory board of Astra Zeneca, GSK, Roche and Novartis. Prof. Sterk received a grant from Innovative Medicines Initiative and has a non-substantial interest in SME Breathomix. Prof. Skipp has a grant from EU UBIOPRED IMI FP and is a shareholder in TopMD Precision Medicine Ltd. Prof. Djukanovic receives consulting fees from Synairgen and honoraria from Regeneron, GSK and is on the advisory board for Synairgen. He also holds stock in Synairgen. Dr Ye, Dr Cheng, Dr Bakke, Dr Caruso, Dr Horvárth, Prof. Howarth, Dr Krug, Dr Montuschi, Dr Sanak and Dr Schofield report no potential conflict of interest.
(Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)