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Depression associated with CV mortality in younger women
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Depressive symptoms predicted CAD presence and risk for death in women aged 55 years or younger in a recent study.
However, depressive symptoms did not predict CAD presence or risk for death in women aged older than 55 years or in men aged 55 years or younger, researchers found.
“This may be one of the ‘hidden’ risk factors that can help explain why women die at a disproportionately higher rate than men after a heart attack,” researcher Amit Shah, MD, MSCR, said in a press release.
Shah, of Emory University, and colleagues analyzed 3,237 patients undergoing coronary angiography for the evaluation of CAD (mean age, 62.5 years; 34% women).
Participants were stratified by presence or absence of CAD burden. Depressive symptoms were categorized by Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) score. Median follow-up was 2.9 years.
Shah and colleagues found that after multivariable adjustment for CAD risk factors, depressive symptoms predicted the presence of CAD in women aged 55 years or younger (OR=1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.13 per one-point increase in PHQ-9 score). They did not find a similar relationship among men aged 55 years or younger (OR=1; 95% CI, 0.95-1.04), women aged 56 to 64 years (OR=1.05; 95% CI, 0.99-1.12) or women aged at least 65 years (OR=0.98; 95% CI, 0.93-1.03).
The researchers also found that depressive symptoms predicted increased risk for death in women aged 55 years and younger (adjusted HR=1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.14 per one-point increase in PHQ-9 score), but not in men aged 55 years or younger (adjusted HR=0.97; 95% CI, 0.91-1.03), in women aged 56 to 64 years (adjusted HR=1.1; 95% CI, 0.95-1.07) or in women aged at least 65 years (adjusted HR=1.02; 95% CI, 0.97-1.07).
“All people, and especially younger women, need to take depression very seriously,” Shah said in the press release. “Depression itself is a reason to take action, but knowing that it is associated with an increased risk of heart disease and death should motivate people to seek help. Providers need to ask more questions. They need to be aware that young women are especially vulnerable to depression, and that depression may increase the risk to their heart.”
Disclosure: The study was funded by the NIH and the Emory Heart and Vascular Institute. The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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