There would be a link between the depression and the risk of cardiovascular illnessesaccording to the results of a study by a team of Inserm researchers at the Paris Cardiovascular Research Center.
Inserm researchers conducted a study using medical data from the PPS3 survey (Paris prospective study III), which has been monitoring the cardiovascular health of around ten thousand healthy volunteers for several years. The scientists evaluated their cardiovascular health using a method proposed by the American Heart Association which is based on seven criteria that are easy to measure or evaluate: three biological indices (cholesterolemia, glycemia and blood pressure) and four behavioral factors (tobacco consumption, diet, physical activity and body mass index). The goal of their research, to analyze the link between depression and cardiovascular illnesses and the hypothesis that people with depressive symptoms have difficulty adopting behaviors beneficial to their cardiovascular health.
Fighting Depression to Improve Cardiovascular Health
The results of this study showed that among the volunteers with poor cardiovascular health, 10% showed a high level of depressive symptoms (of which 5% were treated with antidepressants). “These depressed people are 30% less likely than others to be in cardiovascular health ideal, and that the difference essentially relates to behavioral risk factors,” explains Jean-Philippe Empana, head of an Inserm* team at the Cardiovascular Research Center in Paris.
“This is an interesting result because we can fight against depressive symptoms, and therefore indirectly improve the cardiovascular health of a significant part of the population”.
“Over the past few years, the concept of primordial prevention has emerged, a more upstream approach that aims to prevent the appearance of these risk factors,” concludes Jean-Philippe Empana.
Read also:
Depression paves the way for Parkinson’s disease
Depression: better screening needed
Depression in numbers