Depression and Risk for Cardiovascular Disease

A large, well-designed, and well-controlled study shows that depression is indeed a risk factor for incident cardiovascular disease, but the risk is fairly small.

Study results have suggested that depression is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), but these studies were small, characterized depression and CVD imprecisely, and insufficiently identified or controlled for confounding factors. For a more careful examination, researchers analyzed participant-level data from two large prospective datasets, Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration (ERFC; a group of 21 studies) and the U.K. Biobank. At baseline, the combined total of over 560,000 participants had completed validated depression scales and did not have histories of CVD. At follow-up (medians, 10 and 8 years, respectively), 16,870 incident CVD events (fatal or nonfatal coronary heart disease [CHD] and stroke) and 42,176 deaths occurred.

An…

Reviewing Author

Peter Roy-Byrne, MD

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Peter Roy-Byrne, MD

Disclosures

Editorial BoardsUpToDate

Depression and Risk for Cardiovascular Disease

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Reviewing Author