Depression Linked to Fatal Stroke
Jan. 7, 2002 -- Medical research continues to show the harmful effects that depression can wreak on your body. And in the newest investigation of mind-body disease, researchers have shown that ignoring depression and anxiety can lead to a deadly stroke.
Previous medical research has shown that depression can lead to earlier death from heart disease. So researchers from several universities across the U.K. wanted to see if psychological distress, such as depression and anxiety, might play a role in stroke as well.
In the U.S., stroke is the No. 3 cause of death, behind heart disease and cancer. Each year, about 600,000 people suffer a stroke. You'll find that the fatal ones average out to killing one person every three minutes, according to the American Heart Association's 2002 Heart and Stroke Statistical Update.
In the new study, Margaret May, MSc, and colleagues studied more than 2,000 men aged 45 to 59. Each man was given a health questionnaire that asked for personal health information about many things, including depression and anxiety. The men were then followed for 11 years to see how many of them went on to have a stroke.
The researchers considered what else could have led these men to suffer a stroke, such as heart disease and diabetes. But even with these complications taken into account, depression and anxiety still raised the risk of deadly stroke to 2 1/2 times the normal rate.
The findings warn that you should not ignore symptoms of depression and anxiety, says Robert M. Carney, PhD, in an editorial accompanying the study. However, in this study, depression didn't seem to raise the risk of suffering a non-fatal stroke or heart problem.
Carney says in a news release that more research is needed to pinpoint why psychological distress can lead to fatal strokes. But he does have some ideas about what could be happening.
"Depressed people often don't take medicines as prescribed, so some of the men may not be taking medicine for high blood pressure, thereby increasing their risk for stroke," he says.
The study also showed that the more severe the psychological distress, the more likely you are to suffer a deadly stroke. So, according to the researchers, even people with mild depression or anxiety are likely to benefit from treatment.