(P17-021-25) The Interaction of Depression and Alcohol Consumption on All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality: Insights From the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Objectives: Despite established relationships between depression and alcohol consumption, their interaction on mortality outcomes remains underexplored. This study aimed to assess the risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality associated with depression, alcohol consumption, and their interaction.

Methods: Data from 13,868 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were analyzed. Depression status was assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire and alcohol drinking information was collected using the Alcohol Use Questionnaire. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression models examined associations between depression, alcohol consumption, and mortality outcomes. We further applied stratified analyses to investigate how alcohol modified the depression-related mortality risks.

Results: During a median follow-up of 7.4 years, 1837 deaths were documented (473 cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related; 450 cancer-related). Among women, depression was significantly associated with higher all-cause (HR=1.57, 95% CI: 1.21-2.03) and CVD-specific mortality (HR=2.55. 95% CI: 1.71-3.82); moderate drinking was associated with a lower all-cause (HR=0.72, 95% CI: 0.57-0.90) and other-cause specific mortality HR=0.58, 95% CI: 0.42-0.81). Similar patterns were observed in men. Stratified analyses showed that moderate drinkers had lower depression-related mortality risks compared to never drinkers, notably for cancer-specific mortality among women and all-cause and cancer-specific mortalities among men. Significant interactions between depression and alcohol consumption were observed for all-cause (P = 0.03) and cancer-specific mortality (P = 0.02) among men, as well as for cancer-specific mortality among women (P-interaction = 0.048).

Conclusions: Depression was associated with higher risk of mortality outcomes, while moderate drinking was associated with lower risks and may attenuate depression’s detrimental effects on mortality.

Funding Sources: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China 82103809 and Shanghai High-level Local University Innovation Team (to J. Zheng)