Lifestyle may link depression and heart disease
Long-term study tracked 1,017 people
By Nathan Seppa
The long-standing connection between depression and heart problems might be traceable to the fact that depressed people are less physically active than others, a new study of heart patients shows. A greater tendency in depressed people to smoke and to fail to take medications regularly may also play a role, researchers report in the Nov. 26 Journal of the American Medical Association.
Previous studies have suggested that depression seems to increase the risk of heart problems in people with no history of them, and that depression often coincides with worsening health in people who have an existing heart condition. Yet the medical reason for this association is unknown, and it’s not even clear whether depression leads to heart problems or vice versa.
Scientists have investigated possible side effects from antidepressant drugs, chemical imbalances in the brain, stress, diet, chronic inflammation, smoking and a lack of exercise as reasons for the link between depression and heart problems.
To sort out these possibilities, researchers began a study in 2000, identifying people visiting clinics in the San Francisco Bay area who had chronic but stable coronary heart disease. Of the 1,017 patients enrolled, tests showed that one-fifth, average age 63, had symptoms of depression at the start of the study. The other four-fifths were age 68 on average and weren’t depressed. Researchers monitored the health of all the volunteers using lab tests, checkups, interviews, death records. Follow-up averaged five years, and researchers logged the final data entries in early 2008.