People diagnosed with depression in early or middle age are at increased risk for developing coronary heart disease

A large-scale Swedish study suggests that people who are diagnosed with depression, especially between 25 and 50 years of age, are at increased risk for future coronary heart disease, according to an article in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Researchers from the Karolinska Institute, Center for Family and Community Medicine, Huddinge, Sweden, examined complete hospital discharge records for all patients in Sweden from 1987 to 2001.

After identifying a total of 44,826 cases of first hospital admissions for depression (19,620 men and 25,206 women) in the Swedish family coronary heart disease database, they found that 1,916 developed coronary heart disease. By combining these records with an extensive registry of Swedish residents, risk estimates by age, gender, geographic region and socioeconomic status could be calculated.

Across all age and gender groups, patients diagnosed with depression were about 1.5 times more likely to develop coronary heart disease than patients with no diagnosis of depression. In the youngest age group, 25 to 39, the risk ratio was about 3.

Kristina Sundquist, MD, PhD, wrote “The present study showed that young to middle aged people hospitalized for depression had a high risk of developing coronary heart disease. Primary healthcare teams meet patients with depression, and it is important that they treat depression as an additional individual and independent coronary heart disease risk factor. Patients with clinical depression should be given not only short-term treatment, but also maintenance therapy to prevent relapses and recurrences of depression.”



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