Strength (measured as grip strength, a highly sexually dimorphic index of physical formidability) is negatively associated with depression and accounts for some of the sex difference

Strength is negatively associated with depression and accounts for some of the sex difference: a replication & extension. Caroline B Smith, Tom Rosenström, Edward H Hagen. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, eoac007, Feb 22 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoac007

Abstract

Background: Depression occurs about twice as often in women as in men, a disparity that remains poorly understood. Using an evolutionary model, Hagen and Rosenström [1] predicted and found that grip strength, a highly sexually dimorphic index of physical formidability, mediated much of the effect of sex on depression. Striking results like this are more likely to be published than null results, potentially biasing the scientific record. It is therefore critical to replicate and extend them.

Methodology: Using new data from the 2013-2014 cycle of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a nationally representative sample of US households (N = 3650), we replicated models of the effect of sex and grip strength on depression reported in Hagen and Rosenström [1], along with additional potential confounds and a new detailed symptom-level exploration.

Results: Overall, the effects from the original paper were reproduced although with smaller effect sizes. Grip strength mediated 38% of the effect of sex on depression, compared to 63% in Hagen and Rosenström [1]. These results were extended with findings that grip strength had a stronger association with some depression symptoms, like suicidality, low interest, and low mood than with other symptoms, like appetite changes.

Conclusions: Grip strength is negatively associated with depression, especially its cognitive-affective symptoms, controlling for numerous possible confounds. Although many factors influence depression, few of these reliably occur cross-culturally in a sex-stratified manner and so are unlikely to explain the well-established, cross-cultural sex difference in depression. The sex difference in upper body strength occurs in all populations and is therefore a candidate evolutionary explanation for some of the sex difference in depression.

Keywords: mood disorders, major depressive disorder, bargaining, honest signaling, gender, replication