. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 Jul 19.

Published in final edited form as: J Biomed Inform. 2023 Apr 21;142:104368. doi: 10.1016/j.jbi.2023.104368

Table 6.

Support from SemMedDB for anemia as a confounder of depression as a risk factor for AD. The support is divided into two components: (a.)the anemia→ depression component and (b.)the anemia → AD component.

Support in the structured literature for anemia as a confounder for depression as a risk factor for AD
(a.) Anemia -> Depression
PMID	Triples	Source text from titles and abstracts in the literature	Comment
22307099¹²⁸	Anemia PREDISPOSES depressive disorder	Anaemia predicted raised depression scores 3 weeks later independently of age, gender, marital status, educational attainment, smoking, Global Registry of Acute Cardiac Events (GRACE) risk scores, the negative mood in hospital and history of depression (p=0.003).	This study focused on a cohort of patients with acute coronary syndrome. Moreover, this statement insinuates a statistical prediction rather than a strictly causal role for anemia. However, the paper did find anemia to be predictive of depression.
32559605¹²⁹	Anemia PREDISPOSES depressive disorder	However, no safety signal regarding anemia for DNG users could be detected, whereas a slight increase in depression risk cannot be excluded but might be explained by baseline severity of endometriosis or unknown country-specific confounding variables.	This paper was focused on hormonal endometriosis treatments rather than looking at anemia and depression directly. However, patients with anemia taking Dienogest (DNG) to treat endometriosis were at a slightly increased risk of developing depression, though this may be partially explainable by confounding.
(b.) Anemia -> AD
PMID	Triple	Sentence
29954452¹³⁰	Anemia CAUSES Alzheimer’s disease	Red blood cell indices and anemia as causative factors for cognitive function deficits and Alzheimer’s disease	Source text has a precise causal interpretation. This paper used Mendelian randomization using UK BioBank data to investigate the relationship between hemoglobin level and anemia and cognitive performance, concluding that the relationship was likely causal.