Depressive symptoms and muscle weakness: A two-way relation?

The potential association between depressive symptoms and dynapenia – i.e. muscle weakness – is limited to few, mainly cross-sectional, studies. We use SHARE (Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe) panel data to investigate whether the onset of dynapenia at 4-year follow-up can be explained by pre-existing (either at baseline, or at 2-year follow-up) depressive symptoms, or vice versa. Depressive symptoms were identified as a score of 4 or more on the 12-item EURO-D scale. Individuals were classified as affected by dynapenia if they had handgrip strength of <20 kg for women and 30 kg for men. We estimate whether being affected by symptoms of depression at baseline or becoming…