Depressive disorder and elevated risk of bell's palsy: a nationwide propensity score-weighting study.

BACKGROUND: Prior studies have reported a potential relationship between depressive disorder (DD), immune function, and inflammatory response. Some studies have also confirmed the correlation between immune and inflammatory responses and Bell's palsy. Considering that the pathophysiology of these two diseases has several similarities, this study investigates if DD raises the risk of developing Bell's palsy. METHODS: This nationwide propensity score-weighting cohort study utilized Taiwan National Health Insurance data. 44,198 patients with DD were identified as the DD cohort and 1,433,650 adult subjects without DD were identified as the comparison cohort. The inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) strategy was used to balance the differences of covariates between two groups. The 5-year incidence of Bell's palsy was evaluated using the Cox proportional-hazard model, presenting results in terms of hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: The average age of DD patients was 48.3 ± 17.3 years, and 61.86% were female. After propensity score-weighting strategy, no significant demographic differences emerged between the DD and comparison cohort. The Cox proportional hazards model revealed a statistically significant adjusted IPTW-HR of 1.315 (95% CI: 1.168-1.481) for Bell's palsy in DD patients compared to comparison subjects. Further independent factors for Bell's palsy in this model were age (IPTW-HR: 1.012, 95% CI: 1.010-1.013, p < 0.0001), sex (IPTW-HR: 0.909, 95% CI: 0.869-0.952, p < 0.0001), hypertension (IPTW-HR: 1.268, 95% CI: 1.186-1.355, p < 0.0001), hyperlipidemia (IPTW-HR: 1.084, 95% CI: 1.001-1.173, p = 0.047), and diabetes (IPTW-HR: 1.513, 95% CI: 1.398-1.637, p < 0.0001) CONCLUSION: This Study confirmed that individuals with DD face an elevated risk of developing Bell's palsy. These findings hold significant implications for both clinicians and researchers, shedding light on the potential interplay between mental health and the risk of certain physical health outcomes.

"Altered Short-Term Dynamics of Cardio-Respiratory Interaction during Propofol-Induced Yawning".

"Cardiac and respiratory oscillations have been shown to interact with each other. This interaction could reflect autonomic nervous system functionality. Propofol-induced yawning during anesthesia induction seems to be associated with sympathetic activation. Presumptively, there is high linearity among interaction of different physiologic system behaviors. Recently, investigators used coherence analysis to quantify the existence and strength of linearity between system signals for study of cardio-respiratory interaction under different physiological conditions. In this investigation, we used a method of time-frequency coherence function to analyze ECG and respiration signals to investigate the linearity of cardio-respiratory dynamics in patients undergoing routine propofol induction procedures for elective surgery. In this prospective, observational clinical study, a total of 84 eligible patients were enrolled. The patients were categorized into yawning and no-yawning groups during propofol induction. During induction, both groups demonstrated significant reduction in high frequency coherence (coh-HF) with simultaneously significant increase in very low frequency coherence (coh-VLF) compared to the pre-induction period. As yawning occurred, the yawning group had more significant changes of cardio-respiratory coherences than the no-yawning group at coh-LF and coh-VLF bands. The yawning group also showed loss of linearity at high frequency band (coh-HF > 0.5) as compared with the pre-induction period, and also showed increases in linearity at low (coh-LF > 0.5) and very low (coh-VLF > 0.5) frequency bands compared with the no-yawning group. Propofol-induced yawning alters cardio-respiratory dynamics with changes of linearity between cardio-vascular and respiratory system behaviors."