Treating depression lowers the risk of stroke, heart failure, heart attack and death, new findings suggest.
Previous studies have linked depression to higher risk of cardiovascular disease, but researchers from Intermountain Medical Center recently discovered that treating depression substantially lowers the risk of heart disease to a level equivalent to those who never suffered depression.
"Our study shows that prompt, effective treatment of depression appears to improve the risk of poor heart health," said Heidi May, the lead researcher cardiovascular epidemiologist at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute.
"With the help of past research, we know depression affects long-term cardiovascular risks, 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," May added. "The key conclusion of our study is: If depression isn't treated, the risk of cardiovascular complications increases significantly."
The researchers used data from 7,550 patients who were part of the Intermountain Healthcare's depression registry. All participants had taken at least two depression questionnaires over the period of two years.
Participants were grouped into the following groups: never depressed, no longer depressed, remained depressed, or became depressed. Participants were also followed to see if they suffered any major cardiovascular problems like stroke, heart failure, heart attack or death.
Analyses revealed that 4.6 percent of patients who were no longer depressed at the end of the study had a similar heart complication rates as participants who have never suffered depression.
However, participants who remained depressed had a six percent occurrence of major cardiovascular complications, and those who became depressed during the study period had a 6.4 percent occurrence of major cardiovascular complications.
May and her team said that their findings suggest treatment for depression led to a lower risk of cardiovascular risk that was similar to individuals who've never suffered depression.
They added that more research is needed to identify what treatments are most effective for lowering heart risks of people suffering depression.
"What we've done thus far is simply observe data that has previously been collected," May concluded. "In order to dig deeper, we need do a full clinical trial to fully evaluate what we've observed."
The findings were presented at the 2016 American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions in Chicago on April 2.
