Health

Heart disease, depression link gets stronger

CHICAGO - Depression in older women is strongly linked with a higher risk of dying from heart disease, says research on more than 90,000 women.

While previous research has shown that depressed men and women run an increased risk of developing heart disease, a recent, smaller study found a link with heart-related death only in men.

The new study is one of the largest yet to examine the issue and found that depressed but otherwise healthy postmenopausal women faced a 50 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease during four years of followup than women who were not depressed.

"What is most striking about our findings is that depression was found to be an independent risk factor for subsequent cardiovascular death, particularly in those who had no prior history of cardiovascular disease," said lead researcher Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, a professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

The study appears in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine. The researchers examined data on 93,676 women 50 and older who were taking part in a government study on women's health and followed for an average of about four years.

Nearly 16 percent had strong symptoms of depression, based on questionnaires women completed at the outset.

During the followup, there were 159 heart-related deaths among the 20,130 depressed women, or 0.8 percent. That compared with 372 heart-related deaths among the 71,546 women who were not depressed, or 0.5 percent.

The 50 percent difference remained even when the researchers took into account other factors that affect the risk of heart disease, including age, weight and cholesterol.

Dr. Albert Chan, a cardiologist with the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans, said the study presents among the strongest evidence yet of a link between depression and heart risks in women. Still, he said that it does not prove that depression causes future heart problems and that there might be some unidentified factors that would explain the association.

"Right now we still don't have a biological explanation," Chan said.

CDC WARNS ABOUT DRUGS DANGEROUS TO SENIORS: Dangerous drugs were prescribed to elderly Americans in about one out of every 12 visits to the doctor in 2000, federal officials said Monday.

The findings show no improvement since the last study of the problem in 1995, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

Researchers do not know why the wrong drugs are being given. Among the reasons cited in past federal studies are poor medical training for treating seniors, lack of coordination between doctors and pharmacists and failure to give patients drug information.

The new study, released Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, indicated drugs particularly dangerous to senior citizens were prescribed to them about 8 percent of the time - an estimated 16.7-million doctor visits.

Included on the danger list are some pain relievers, sedatives and antidepressants, according to an expert panel.

SCIENTISTS QUESTION LINK BETWEEN VACCINES, AUTISM: Scientists cast new doubt Monday on suspicions that vaccines increase the risk for autism, saying large studies conducted in Denmark, Britain and the United States have failed to find a link between the childhood shots and the brain disorder.

Other researchers, however, questioned the findings and presented evidence they said supported the theory that mercury used as a preservative in some vaccines may increase the risk for autism in at least some children.

The conflicting research came at a daylong meeting sponsored by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, which is investigating a link between vaccines and autism at the request of the CDC.

The institute is not expected to issue its findings for several months.

- Information from the Washington Post was used in this report.

Archives of Internal Medicine, www.archinternmed.com

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright