GOLD BioAge and depression: Associations with mortality among depressed NHANES participants (2005–2018)

BACKGROUND: Biological ageing, measured by Gompertz Law-Based Biological Age (GOLD BioAge), may be associated with depression risk in U.S. adults and with mortality among individuals with depression, but these relationships remain incompletely characterized. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of NHANES 2005-2018 data to evaluate the association between GOLD BioAge and depression in U.S. adults, and performed a retrospective cohort analysis to examine its relationship with all-cause mortality among individuals with depression, using logistic regression, Cox proportional hazards models, and Kaplan-Meier survival curves. RESULTS: Among 30,885 participants (mean age 49.9 ± 17.7 years; 49.9% female), Restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression revealed a significant nonlinear association (p for non-linear