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Study Finds Depression-Heart Disease Link

Posted on: Thursday, 3 February 2005, 03:00 CST

Sometimes, in medical research, answers raise continuing questions that both frustrate and excite those doing the studies.

Dr. Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, lead investigator in the 40- center national Women's Health Initiative study, finds herself in that position in this ongoing look at the major causes of illness and death among older women. About 100,000 women are being tracked over 10-plus years.

Last year, the WHI study found that postmenopausal women - ages 50 to 79 - were at a greater risk of developing heart disease when they have even mild depression.

And that the depression preceded risk of death due to heart attack.

"We had a scale that measures depression, mild to moderate," explained Wassertheil-Smoller.

"We want to look at biomarkers that might link depression to cardiovascular disease (as a follow-up,)" she said in a recent phone interview.

She and her co-authors can speculate on causes, but have no definitive answers.

Since the link was to cardiovascular disease - and not cancer, for example - Wassertheil-Smoller said that one possible mechanism could be that depression is associated with C-reactive protein, an inflammatory condition that has been linked to cardiovascular disease.

"Or depression may be an acute trigger that sets it off," she said.

In any case, she says further studies are needed, either a clinical trial with pills or a study of some other treatment of depression, like talk therapy, to see if treating depression might lower the associated risk of cardiovascular disease.

"We do know that depression can be helped with cognitive behavioral therapy and medication. This is a risk factor, just like cholesterol. The mind and body are, in fact, one. We're all matter," she said.

A professor of epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, Wassertheil-Smoller said she would like to continue this research.

Frankly, it's hard to see what is stopping it.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc., makers of the antidepressant Effexor SR, gave money and pills for the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study, to determine in a clinical trial whether hormone therapy prevents or delays Alzheimer's. (It didn't.)

In fact, the study found that taking replacement hormones actually increased the risk of developing dementia.

That could scare off further involvement by Wyeth, but with some antidepressants getting a bad rap, a new study that could find the pills help prevent heart disease would prove a big bonus.

Drug companies are not shy in underwriting studies or events, and the WHI has an independent reputation for carrying out rigorous scientific studies, a good forum for honest outcomes.

Or what about the National Institutes of Health giving money?

It's frustrating to know there is a link between depression and heart disease if we can't figure out a way to break the chain.

On Health is a weekly column on health issues. If you have questions or comments, write Carolyn Susman at The Palm Beach Post, P.O. Box 24700, West Palm Beach, Fla. 33416, call 820-4433 or e- mail carolyn_susman@pbpost.com

Source: Palm Beach Post

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