Source: Xinhua

03-12-2009 15:47

Special Report:   Tech Max

BEIJING, March. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- A relatively healthy woman with severe depression is at increased risk of heart disease than already sick woman, say U.S. researchers.

A relatively healthy woman with severe depression is at increased risk of heart disease than already sick woman.(File photo)

Columbia University researchers Monday reported that depression may lead to heart disease in the first place.The scientists tracked 63,000 women from the long-running Nurses' Health Study between 1992 and 2004. None had signs of heart disease when the study began, but nearly 8 percent had evidence of serious depression.

The depressed women were more than twice as likely to experience sudden cardiac death - death typically caused by an irregular heartbeat, concluded the 12-year study, published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. They also had a smaller increased risk of death from other forms of heart disease.

Sudden cardiac death seemed more closely linked with antidepressant use than with the depression symptoms the women reported.

That might simply mean that women who used antidepressants were, appropriately, the most seriously depressed, cautioned lead researcher Dr. William Whang. But he said the finding merited more research.

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Editor:Yang Jie