The influence of C-reactive protein on depression in inflammatory bowel disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND

The comorbidity between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and depression has been widely recognized, but the role of C-reactive protein (CRP) as a key inflammatory marker in this context is controversial. Furthermore, there is a lack of an effective strategy for applying changes in CRP levels to the clinical diagnosis of IBD and depression comorbidity.

METHODS

A systematic search of relevant databases was conducted to include studies that met the criteria. A fixed-effects model was used to assess the association between the CRP levels and depressive status in IBD patients using the standardized mean difference (SMD) and its 95% confidence interval (CI).

RESULTS

10 case-control studies involving 2105 participants were included. The results showed that IBD patients with depression had significantly higher CRP levels than non-depressed patients (SMD = 0.18, 95% CI: 0.09-0.27). Subgroup analyses further showed that the association was more pronounced in the Asian region (SMD = 0.26, 95% CI: 0.11-0.41), in patients aged ≤40 years (SMD = 0.27, 95% CI: 0.15-0.39), and in studies with a higher proportion of male participants (SMD = 0.28, 95% CI: 0.12-0.43).

CONCLUSION

Individuals with IBD exhibiting higher CRP concentrations face a substantially greater likelihood of developing depression, indicating that CRP potentially functions as an inflammatory marker for depression susceptibility in IBD patients.