Depression in Women May Lead to Death

Researchers Look to More Studies for Answers

Aug 20, 2009 Leslie McCloud

Women diagnosed and treated for clinical depression are more likely to die of sudden cardiac arrest that non-depressed women.

Researchers found that those who reported symptoms of severe depression were 50% more likely to experience a serious cardiovascular event during follow-up as compared to their non-depressed counterparts, according to an article by Paula Rasich, entitled "Depression Linked to Deadly Heart Disease" on the web site of the American College of Cardiology, Cardiosmart.org.

The new findings are puzzling doctors who study women's health and mental health issues and more research on the results are needed, doctors have said.

The article quoted lead researcher in the study, Dr. William Whang, Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, as saying that researchers suspect antidepressant medication may have been a marker for worse depression in the study participants and it wasn't that antidepressant medications themselves were causing sudden Cardiac Death.

"At the start of the trial in 1992, nearly eight percent of the women reported symptoms of severe depression, and all the women were followed for 12 years to track heart attacks and deaths from heart disease," he said.

The researchers also emphasize that their findings don’t mean that depression causes sudden cardiac death, but say the two are linked, and could possibly be explained by arrhythmia. Depression may affect the body’s ability to control heart rhythm.

“The most relevant implication is that for women with depressive symptoms, management of coronary heart disease risk factors may be especially important because we know that reducing blood pressure, controlling cholesterol, and not smoking are things that can be done to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease events,” Dr. Whang said. “We found a higher risk of cardiac events, but mostly due to these coronary risk factors."

Researchers also said a measure of clinical depression including antidepressant use was specifically associated with Sudden Cardiac Death. Although antidepressant use might be a marker of worse depression, its specific association with SCD merits further study

In an accompanying editorial comment, authors of a like study, Sanjiv M Narayan, MD, and Murray B. Stein, MD, MPH, of the University of California, San Diego say “prospective studies are necessary to resolve the controversy on whether antidepressant agents might directly cause coronary heart disease events and sudden cardiac arrest.”

The researchers authored for the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, "The Absence of Proof might be more important that the Proof of Absence," which is a study questioning whether antidepressants or depression increase cardiovascular mortality.

Women who feel as if they are experiencing depressive episodes may want to take steps to get diagnosed by a medical professional and engage in activities that may lift their mood. Depression is a serious illness.

The copyright of the article Depression in Women May Lead to Death in Women’s Health is owned by Leslie McCloud. Permission to republish Depression in Women May Lead to Death in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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