Depression Can Increase Heart Disease Risk By Kirsten Whittaker At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

It has been known for some time that those diagnosed with depression have a higher heart disease risk or cardiac event - the medical term for a heart attack, stroke or other sudden problem involving your heart.

There’s also lots of evidence that depression is more common in heart patients and seems to up the risk of a second cardiovascular event.

No one has yet been able to pin down the reason for the association, but a new study published in the November 26th issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association sought to do just that.

The results of the work suggest that the higher risk of cardiac events might be a result of behaviors that come with depression, especially low activity levels.

After all, when you’re feeling down it’s hard to motivate yourself, even harder to get up and get active.

It’s a vicious circle that can send your health spiraling downward reducing the chances of getting better.

Anyone who is being treated for cardiovascular disease knows how critical being active, within the limits you discuss with your doctor, is to recovering your strength, and your health.

The study, known as the Heart and Soul Study, was a collaborative effort of Dr. Mary A. Whooley of the VA Medical Center in San Francisco California, colleagues from 12 clinics in the Bay area, as well as researchers from Germany and The Netherlands.

The work involved 1,017 patients with stable heart disease, all outpatients in San Francisco area clinics.

The subjects filled out a questionnaire known as the Patient Health Questionnaire to see if they had depressive symptoms - they also answered questions about how active they were in the last month, including sports.

Of all the subjects, 199 had depressive symptoms, 818 did not. The study also found that subjects who were depressed were more likely to engage in dangerous behaviors like smoking, not taking their medications as prescribed and being less active overall.

Of the study participants who had depression, 10% had a cardiac event during the average 4.8 year follow up period. For those who weren’t depressed, a lowly 6.7% had a second cardiac event during the study.

Cardiac events include heart failure, heart attack, stroke, transient ischemic attack (a “mini” stroke) or death.

Even after using statistical tools to account for other health issues and the severity of disease, the depressed subjects were still 31% more likely to have another cardiac event.

One of the most important findings of the work was that physical inactivity alone was associated with a 44% greater rate of cardiac events.

Exercise might now become an even more important part of treatment for both depression and heart problems. Certainly this latest research gives you reason to get up… get active.

“These findings raise the hypothesis that the increased risk of cardiovascular events associated with depression could potentially be preventable with behavior modification, especially exercise,” the researchers write. “Exercise training can improve both depressive symptoms and markers for cardiovascular risk.”

The researchers also point out that it’s hard to tell where the independent effect of depression begins and where the effects of cardiac disease end.

So if you’re depressed, and you’ve had a heart attack or other cardiovascular event, this latest research suggests that getting active can lower your risk of repeating that pattern.

Talk with your doctor about your activity level - consider counseling or other treatment to help you get a handle on your depression so that you are able to get more active… perhaps adopt a few other healthier lifestyle habits as well to reduce your heart disease risk.

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