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Adults
who suffer from depression but are otherwise healthy are at
high risk of developing heart disease, according to researchers
from the University of California in San Francisco.
Researchers
examined 11 large-scale studies conducted between 1993 and
2000. They categorized 36,000 participants, both male and
female, as depressed or not depressed, then followed the participants
for three to 37 years to record incidences of heart attacks
and death from heart disease.
"Depression
was associated with a significant increased risk of [heart
disease] in seven of the 11 studies," despite the participants'
good health, said Reiner Rugulies reporting in the American
Journal of Preventive Medicine.
The depressed
participants were between one-and-a-half and four times as
likely to develop heart disease as non-depressed participants.
The other four studies also supported a link between depression
and heart disease but the evidence was weaker.
Participants
with clinical depression were almost twice as likely to develop
heart disease as those with depressed mood and almost three
times as likely as non-depressed participants.
Rugulies
speculates that depressed patients may have a higher risk
of hypertension and may be more likely to show poor health
behaviors, such as smoking and lack of leisure-time physical
activity. He also theorizes that low socioeconomic status
may contribute to negative emotions, setting disease-producing
psychological and biological processes in motion.
Source:
Depression Week
of July 7, 2002
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