Taking swift action could make all the difference.
It’s been known that depression is a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, but as an individual’s depression worsens or improves, it’s remained more of a mystery how this affects his or her risk of heart disease.
Now, researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City have come to some striking conclusions about depression and cardiovascular disease, highlighting just how important it is for patients to receive quick and effective treatment.
The new study included data compiled from over 7,550 patients in the Intermountain Healthcare’s depression registry database, and all patients completed at least two depression questionnaires over the course of one to two years.
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The results suggest that effectively treating depression can decrease a patient’s chance of having a stroke, heart failure, heart attack, or death.
Incredibly, the study found that effective treatment for depression can actually reduce these heart risks to the same level as those who never had short-term depression.
"With the help of past research, we know depression affects long-term cardiovascular risks,” Heidi May, a cardiovascular epidemiologist with the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute, said in a press release, “but knowing that alleviating the symptoms of depression reduces a person's risk of heart disease in the short term, too, can help care providers and patients commit more fully to treating the symptoms of depression.”
Based on the results of the surveys, the patients were categorized into one of four groups: never depressed, no longer depressed, remained depressed, or became depressed. After the patient completed the last questionnaire, they were followed to see if they had any major cardiovascular problems like stroke, heart failure, heart attack or death.
The results showed that patients who were no longer depressed had a similar rate of major cardiovascular complications (4.6 percent) to those who had no depression at all (4.8 percent).
However, those who remained depressed and those who became depressed throughout the study saw increased occurrences of major cardiovascular problems — their rates were 6 and 6.4 percent respectively. But the study unearthed a silver lining: “Treatment for depression resulted in a decreased risk of cardiovascular risk that was similar to someone who didn't have depression,” the press release states.
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While the research provides solid evidence that effective treatment for depression decreases the risk of cardiovascular problems in the short-term, the study authors say that further research must be done in order to identify exactly what treatment should include.
"What we've done thus far is simply observe data that has previously been collected," Dr. May said. "In order to dig deeper, we need do a full clinical trial to fully evaluate what we've observed."
Additionally, since the nature of depression is extremely complex, it’s difficult to say whether depression leads to the risk factors associated with cardiovascular problems, like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, or whether it’s the other way around.
Nonetheless, the bottom line is that the study results indicate that changes in depression symptoms may cause immediate physiological changes in the body — which in turn cause short-term major cardiovascular problems to occur. Staying on top of treating depression swiftly and effectively can make all the difference.
