Heart Disease Tied to Depression, Anger
March 9, 2009 –
, anger, and hostility may be red flags of
heightened
risk, even if you don’t have heart disease right
now.
That news comes from two studies published in the March 17 edition of the
.
than women who
aren’t depressed. This finding comes from a study of more than 63,000 U.S.
female nurses followed from 1992 to 2004. The nurses had no history of heart
disease when the study started. The study also linked sudden cardiac death to
use, but it’s not clear if that’s related to the drugs or the
depression.
Chronically angry or hostile
adults with no history of heart disease may be 19% more likely than their peers
to develop heart disease. And angry or hostile heart disease patients may be
24% more likely than other heart disease patients to have a poor prognosis.
These findings came from reviewers who pooled data from 44 studies conducted in
America, Europe, Asia, and Australia between 1983 and 2006.
The reports don’t prove that depression, anger, or hostility caused heart
disease. But the findings held regardless of other heart disease risk factors,
suggesting a stubborn link among those traits.
It’s a connection that doctors and patients need to take seriously and talk
about, heart experts tell WebMD.
Heart Disease, Depression, Anger
“There is clearly a link between depression, anger,
,
, and
outcomes in heart disease,” says Philip Binkley, Wilson professor of
medicine at The Ohio State University’s division of cardiovascular
medicine.
The new reports underscore that link, notes Redford Williams, MD, director
of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Duke University.
“What these papers tell us is what we have all known and anybody would
accept — that being hostile and angry a lot of the time is bad for your
health, being depressed is bad for your health,” Williams says.
Williams tells WebMD that he “absolutely” considers chronic anger,
hostility, or depression to be risk factors for heart disease, just like high
(hypertension),
, or
.
Based on the new reports and previous research, “I think you pretty well
have to conclude that yes indeed, these are risk factors,” Williams
says.
Binkley agrees.
“The biggest message that we try to get out to people is this is a risk
factor and a health problem,” Binkley says. “This is something we have
to talk about. The worst thing is to ignore it.”
Cardiologist Pamela Douglas, MD, Geller Professor of Medicine at Duke
University, also sees a strong link between depression and heart disease — but
she stops short of calling depression a risk factor for heart disease. She says
it’s not clear which comes first, depression or heart disease. “It’s sort
of a chicken-or-the-egg issue,” Douglas says.
All three experts agree that other heart disease risk factors often
accompany depression — and it never hurts to screen for heart hazards. And if
you already know you have heart disease, you should be screened for depression,
according to
by the American Heart Association.

webmd.com

 Post in Health, Heart, Male, female