Related News
Study links depression to heart disease
Source: Agencies |
March 11, 2009, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
SEVERE depression may silently break a seemingly healthy woman's heart.
Doctors have long known that depression is common after a heart attack or stroke, and worsens those people's outcomes. On Monday Columbia University researchers reported new evidence that depression can lead to heart disease in the first place.
The scientists tracked 63,000 women from the long-running Nurses' Health Study between 1992 and 2004. None had signs of heart disease when the study began, but nearly 8 percent had evidence of serious depression.
The depressed women were more than twice as likely to experience sudden cardiac death ?? death typically caused by an irregular heartbeat, concluded the 12-year study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. They also had a smaller increased risk of death from other forms of heart disease.
The big surprise: sudden cardiac death seemed more closely linked with antidepressant-use than with the depression.
That might simply mean women who used antidepressants were, appropriately, the most seriously depressed, cautioned lead researcher Dr William Whang, who said the finding merited more research.
Doctors have long known that depression is common after a heart attack or stroke, and worsens those people's outcomes. On Monday Columbia University researchers reported new evidence that depression can lead to heart disease in the first place.
The scientists tracked 63,000 women from the long-running Nurses' Health Study between 1992 and 2004. None had signs of heart disease when the study began, but nearly 8 percent had evidence of serious depression.
The depressed women were more than twice as likely to experience sudden cardiac death ?? death typically caused by an irregular heartbeat, concluded the 12-year study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. They also had a smaller increased risk of death from other forms of heart disease.
The big surprise: sudden cardiac death seemed more closely linked with antidepressant-use than with the depression.
That might simply mean women who used antidepressants were, appropriately, the most seriously depressed, cautioned lead researcher Dr William Whang, who said the finding merited more research.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
