Depression Linked to Heart Disease

Depression can increase the risk of heart disease, according to a new study.

The latest study, which involved 10,308 British workers in the Whitehall II study, revealed causal links between symptoms of depression and coronary heart disease.

Researchers found a cumulative effect of depressive symptoms on the risk of coronary heart disease consistent with an increasing dose-response.

The findings revealed no added risk of coronary heart disease in participants who showed evidence of depressive symptoms during one or two of the questionnaire assessments. However, the findings revealed a 100 percent increased risk in those who reported symptoms at three or four of the assessments.

Researcher noted that the association of depressive symptoms with stroke was only apparent with short follow-up, suggesting that this association was an effect of reverse causation.

"In other words, depressive symptoms may be a sign of imminent stroke, but are not causally related," lead investigator Dr. Eric Brunner from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, UK, said in a news release. Furthermore, there was no evidence of any dose-response effect with stroke. Researchers said that the findings suggest that depressive symptoms are a consequence and not the cause of vascular disease.

"This finding provides evidence supporting a causal relationship between depression and CHD, in contrast to the findings in relation to stroke," researchers said.

"European prevention guidelines refer to depression as a coronary risk factor, and in our study repeated episodes of depressive symptoms accounted for 10% of all CHD events in the study population. However, this figure relies on the strong assumption of a direct causal mechanism. Whether or not the association is causal, supporting individuals to recover from chronic or repeated episodes of depression has merit, particularly if the individual is then better able to reduce any vascular risk, for example by quitting smoking," Brunner added.

The findings are published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.