Study substantiates depression, cardiac death link
Reported March 11, 2009
New York: March 11: A new study conducted by Columbia University researchers has found a positive correlation between severe depression and heart attacks in woman. While the precise nature of the relationship remained ambiguous, women on antidepressants appeared to be at an increased risk for sudden cardiac death.
Dr. William Whang, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City said, “We found that women who had worse depressive symptoms had higher rates of risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and smoking.
The scientists studied 63,000 women. The data was taken from the Nurses Health Study between 1992 and 2004. Eight percent of these women had confirmation of a serious depression. However, none of then had signs of any heart disease at the time of start of the study.
The 12-year study concluded that depressed women were at more than double the risk to have a sudden cardiac arrest. The death in such cases was characteristically caused by an irregular heartbeat. Chances of death amongst such women from other forms of heart disease also increased marginally.
Studies conducted earlier have also established a relationship between depression and higher death rate of people suffering from heart disease. Whang observed, “But this was a group of women without heart disease, and that makes it different.”
A possible reason attributed to the findings is that depressed patients tend to miss out on their medicines, stay inside instead of working out, and on the whole eat inadequately. In nutshell, they do not take good care of themselves. All these conditions precipitate a heart related disease.
Whang said of the study, “The biggest clinical implication is that management of coronary heart disease risk factors may be especially important for those with depressive symptoms. Taking care of those risk factors can modify the risk for coronary disease.”
Source : Journal of the American College of Cardiology.