When cardiovascular risk factors, including hypertension, smoking, HDL-cholesterol, serum triacylglycerols, alcohol, and anxiety and depression scores, were further adjusted for, higher IL-6 remained associated with TMTB (standardised β −0.076, p=0.04) and MR (standardised β −0.111, p=0.001), and fibrinogen, CRP and TNF-α remained associated with DST (standardised βs −0.086, p=0.008; −0.087, p=0.009; −0.083, p=0.008, respectively). The gene discussed is TNF; the disease is depressive symptom measurement.