Cardiac Mortality and Depression in Youths Are Connected

According to the conclusions of a new scientific study, it would appear that people below the age of 40, who have a history of depression and/or suicide attempts, are at higher risk of dying from cardiac conditions than peers without such histories.

The investigation also uncovered that the risk was especially high for young women. The study covered population subgroups from all over the United States, so its results can be considered as indicative of general trends, researchers say.

Experts behind the new study say that this is the first investigation they know of that looks at depression as a risk factor for heart conditions. Usually, other conditions are risk factors for depression, especially diseases such as cancer or AIDS.

A causal correlation that goes the other way around has not yet been analyzed in detail, reveals the senior author of the new investigation, Viola Vaccarino, MD, PhD. The expert holds an appointment as the chair of epidemiology at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health.

She explains that her team analyzed data from 7,641 people, aged between 17 and 39, who were all involved in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey-III (NHANES-III). The study tracked participants from 1988 to 1994, and surveyed deaths in the study group until 2006.

“We’re finding that depression is a remarkable risk factor for heart disease in young people. Among women, depression appears to be more important than traditional risk factors such as smoking, hypertension, obesity and diabetes which are not common in young women,” Vaccarino explains.

The figures are indeed puzzling. The Emory team determined that women with a history of depression and/or suicide attempts were 14 times more likely to die off heart attacks than their healthy peers. This group also displayed a 300 percent increase in the risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases.

For men, it was found that their risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases was 2.4 times higher following depressive episodes, while their risk of heart attack increased by 350 percent, PsychCentral reports.

“Direct physiological effects of depression may play a greater role than lifestyle factors in this young population,” the Emory team argues. Details of the new study appear in the latest issue of the esteemed journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

“This is a group that normally should be low risk. Studying these individuals more intensively could be important for understanding how depression affects the heart,” Vaccarino concludes.