Philipp Frank

University College London | UCL · Faculty of Brain Sciences

Objective: Evidence from anti-inflammatory drug trials for the treatment of depression has been inconsistent. This may be ascribed to the differing symptom-specific effects of inflammation. Accordingly, the authors explored the associations between systemic inflammation and an array of individual symptoms of depression across multiple studies. Me...

Background The accumulation of disparate diseases in complex multimorbidity makes prevention difficult if each disease is targeted separately. We aimed to examine obesity as a shared risk factor for common diseases, determine associations between obesity-related diseases, and examine the role of obesity in the development of complex multimorbidity...

Background: Removal from family of origin to state care can be a highly challenging childhood experience and is itself linked to an array of unfavourable outcomes in adult life. We aim to synthetise evidence on the risk of adult mortality in people with a history of state care in early life, and assess the association according to different context...

Importance: Depression is associated with an increased risk of physical illness, but the most common causes of hospitalization among people with depression are unclear. Objective: To examine the association of depression with an array of physical conditions requiring hospital treatment. Design, setting, and participants: In this outcomewide pr...

Summary Background Physical abuse can lead to severe health consequences that extend beyond immediate harm. We explored the associations of physical abuse experienced during childhood and adulthood with a wide range of adult health conditions requiring hospital treatment. Methods We utilised data from a sub-cohort of 157,366 UK Biobank participant...

Background Antidepressant drug treatment may be associated with weight gain, but long-term studies are lacking. Methods We included 3,127 adults (1,701 women) from the REGICOR study, aged 55.6 (SD = 11.6) years on average in 2003–2006, living in the northeast of Spain. They had data at two time points (baseline and a median of 6.3 years later) on...

Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis provides important opportunities to study interaction and effect modification for which individual studies often lack power. While previous meta-analyses have commonly focused on multiplicative interaction, additive interaction holds greater relevance for public health and may in certain contexts bett...

Background Lifestyle behaviours have been linked to dementia incidence, but their cumulative impact on dementia and the mechanisms through which they exert their impact remain poorly understood. This study investigated the association of co-occurring lifestyle behaviours with dementia incidence and the mediating role of systemic inflammation in thi...

Background While individuals who were separated from their biological family and placed into the care of the state during childhood (out-of-home care) are more prone to developing selected adverse health problems in adulthood, their risk of cardiovascular disease is uncertain. Our aim was to explore this association by pooling published and unpubli...

This study aimed to examine whether psychological distress was cross-sectionally associated with meeting World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) recommendations in people living with and beyond cancer. Participants were adults living with and beyond breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, participating in the baseline wave of the Advancing Survivorship a...

Background Ageing hallmarks, characterising features of cellular ageing, have a role in the pathophysiology of many age-related diseases. We examined whether obesity is associated with an increased risk of developing such hallmark-related diseases. Methods In this multicohort study, we included people aged 38–72 years with data on weight, height, a...

Background Although behavioral mechanisms in the association among depression, anxiety, and cancer are plausible, few studies have empirically studied mediation by health behaviors. We aimed to examine the mediating role of several health behaviors in the associations among depression, anxiety, and the incidence of various cancer types (overall, br...

Objectives Lifestyle behaviours have been linked to dementia incidence, but their cumulative impact on dementia and the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study investigated the association of co-occurring lifestyle behaviours with dementia incidence and the mediating role of systemic inflammation in this association. Methods The...

Objective Evidence shows that higher depressive symptoms are associated with mortality among people living with and beyond cancer (LWBC). However, prior studies have not accounted for a wider range of potential confounders, and no study has explored whether socioeconomic position (SEP) moderates the association. This study aimed to examine the asso...

Purpose This study aimed to examine whether psychological distress was cross-sectionally associated with meeting World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) recommendations in people living with and beyond cancer. Methods Participants were adults living with and beyond breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, participating in the baseline wave of the Advancin...

Depression, anxiety and other psychosocial factors are hypothesized to be involved in cancer development. We examined whether psychosocial factors interact with or modify the effects of health behaviors, such as smoking and alcohol use, in relation to cancer incidence. Two‐stage individual participant data meta‐analyses were performed based on 22 c...

Background: Individuals who were separated from their biological family and placed into the care of the state during childhood (out-of-home care) are more prone to developing selected physical and mental health problems in adulthood, however, their risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is uncertain. Accordingly, we pooled published and unpublished r...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to compare the utility of risk estimation derived from questionnaires and administrative records in predicting long-term sickness absence among shift workers. METHODS: This prospective cohort study comprised 3197 shift-working hospital employees (mean age 44.5 years, 88.0% women) who responded to a brief 8-item questionn...

The relationship between high body weight and mental health has been studied for several decades. Improvements in the quality of epidemiological, mechanistic and psychological research have brought greater consistency to our understanding of the links. Large-scale population-based epidemiological research has established that high body weight is as...

Background Depression and anxiety have long been hypothesized to be related to an increased cancer risk. Despite the great amount of research that has been conducted, findings are inconclusive. To provide a stronger basis for addressing the associations between depression, anxiety, and the incidence of various cancer types (overall, breast, lung, p...

Background: While systemic inflammation has been implicated in the etiology of selected neurodegenerative disorders, its role in the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is untested. Accordingly, we quantified the relationship of C-reactive protein (CRP), an acute-phase reactant and marker of systemic inflammation, with subsequent AL...

Background: Although there is growing evidence that former professional athletes from sports characterised by repetitive head impact subsequently experience an elevated risk of dementia, the occurrence of this disorder in retired amateurs, who represent a larger population, is uncertain. The present meta-analysis integrates new results from indivi...

Background: Former participants in sports characterised by low intensity repetitive head impact appear to have elevated rates of later dementia, but links with other psychological health outcomes such as depression and suicide are uncertain. We quantified the occurrence of these endpoints in former contact sports athletes against general populatio...

Background: Antidepressant drug treatment may be associated with weight gain, but long-term studies are lacking. Methods: We included 3127 adults (1701 women) from the REGICOR study, on average aged 55.6 (SD=11.6) years in 2003-2006, living in North-East of Spain. They had data at two time points (baseline and a median of 6.3 years later) on self-r...

Importance: While systemic inflammation has been implicated in the aetiology of selected neurodegenerative disorders, its role in the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is untested. Objective: To quantify the relationship of C-reactive protein (CRP), an acute-phase reactant and marker of systemic inflammation, with ALS occurrence. D...

Background: Traumatic brain injury is associated with the future risk of depression and suicide, and this raises the possibility that former participants in sports characterised by low intensity repetitive head impact may also subsequently experience an increased burden of these mental health outcomes. Using new data from a cohort study integrated...

Objectives Obesity is associated with an increased risk of depression. Systemic low-grade inflammation, a plausible consequence of obesity, has also been linked to depression. However, the potential mediating effects of systemic low-grade inflammation on the association between excess body weight and specific symptom domains of depression remain un...

Background There is uncertainty and contention around whether former participants in sports characterised by repetitive head impact subsequently experience an elevated risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and if the occurrence of these neurodegenerative disorders differs between amateur and professional athletes who have different levels of ex...

Objectives Obesity is associated with increased risk of depression, but the extent to which this association is symptom-specific is unknown. We examined the associations of overweight and obesity with individual depressive symptoms. Methods We pooled data from 15 population-based cohorts comprising 57,532 individuals aged 18 to 100 years at study...

Background: Removal from family of origin to placement in state care is a highly challenging and increasingly prevalent childhood experience. The purpose of this report was to synthesise published and unpublished prospective evidence on adult mortality in people with a history of state care in early life. Methods: For this systematic review and met...

Background Evaluation of cardiovascular disease risk in primary care, which is recommended every 5 years in middle-aged and older adults (typical age range 40–75 years), is based on risk scores, such as the European Society of Cardiology Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE) and American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Athero...

Importance: An immediate research priority is to investigate and monitor the psychological well-being among high-risk groups during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Objective: To examine levels of severity of depressive symptoms over time among individuals with high risk in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design, setting,...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Objective: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected many aspects of the human condition, including mental health and psychological wellbeing. This study examined trajectories of depressive symptoms (DST) over time among vulnerable individuals in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The sample consisted of 51,417 adults...

Genetic susceptibility to depression has been established using polygenic scores, but the underlying mechanisms and the potentially differential effects of polygenic scores on specific types of depressive symptoms remain unknown. This study examined whether systemic low-grade inflammation mediated the association between polygenic scores for depres...

Importance Poorer performance on standard tests of motor coordination in children has emerging links with sedentary behavior, obesity, and functional capacity in later life. These observations are suggestive of an untested association of coordination with health outcomes, including mortality. Objective To examine the association of performance on...

Background: Persistent physical symptoms (PPS), also known as medically unexplained symptoms (MUS), affect approximately 50% of patients in secondary care and are often associated with disability, psychological distress and increased health care costs. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has demonstrated both short- and long-term efficacy with sma...

Introduction Persistent physical symptoms (PPS), also known as medically unexplained symptoms are associated with profound physical disability, psychological distress and high healthcare costs. England’s annual National Health Service costs of attempting to diagnose and treat PPS amounts to approximately £3 billion. Current treatment relies on a p...

Objective: Systemic low-grade inflammation has been associated with the onset of depression, but the exact mechanisms underlying this relationship remain elusive. This study examined whether physical activity (PA) explained the association between elevated plasma levels of inflammatory markers and subsequent depressive symptoms. Design: Prospectiv...

Background Systemic inflammation has been associated with the onset of depressive symptoms. However, the exact mechanisms underlying the relationship between inflammation and depression remain elusive. This study examined whether sleep explained the association between elevated levels of inflammatory markers and subsequent depressive symptoms in an...

Background Chronic inflammation has been associated with the onset of depression, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain elusive. This study examined whether physical activity (PA) explained the association between elevated levels of inflammatory markers and subsequent depressive symptoms in an English nationally representative samp...