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Depression from ongoing stress may weaken bones, making osteoporosis more likely, a new study shows.

The study is based on mice, not people, but it indicates a mind-bone link, the researchers note.

The findings "point for the first time to depression as an important element in causing bone mass loss and osteoporosis," says Raz Yirmiya, PhD, MSc, of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in a university news release.

"The connection between the brain and the skeleton in general, and the influence of depression on bone mass in particular, is a new area of research about which we still know very little," says Yirmiya, a psychology professor and one of the researchers on the study.

Their findings appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Depression & Bones

Depression has been linked to low bone mass and osteoporosis in the past, the researchers note.
But, they say, until now it hasn't been clear which comes first -- depression or osteoporosis.

Yirmiya's team studied the link in male mice. Some of the mice lived in stressful conditions, with dirty cages, bright lights, or loud noises. The other mice lived in clean cages without those stresses.

The stressed-out mice acted depressed. Compared with the nondepressed mice, they drank less of the sugary water in their cages and didn't respond as much when the scientists put a young mouse in their cage.

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