Young adults who are depressed or who feel depressed are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and poor heart health, according to a recent study.
- Globally, it is estimated that 5% of adults suffer from depression and one in eight people have a mental disorder.
- Feeling depressed, feeling unwell or having low spirits is not always synonymous with depression. Depression is a disease corresponding to a disorder of the neurological functioning of the brain.
- It is manifested by abnormal and long sadness, loss of pleasure (“anhedonia”), as well as other associated signs. The risk is personal, social, professional and sometimes vital (suicide).
According to a new studypublished on January 23 in the Journal of the American Heart Associationyoung adults who report being depressed or in poor mental health have higher rates of heart attacks, strokes and heart disease risk factors compared to others.
Depression leads to behaviors that affect heart health
“When you are stressed, anxious, or depressed, you may feel overwhelmed and your heart rate and blood pressure increase. It is also common that depression can lead to making poor life choices such as smoking, drinking alcohol, sleeping less and not being physically active – all adverse conditions that negatively impact your heart”explains Garima Sharma, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine and lead author of the study, in a communicated.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine, located in Baltimore in the United States, analyzed data from more than half a million people aged 18 to 49 who participated in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a survey self-reported nationally, conducted between 2017 and 2020. The survey included questions about whether these individuals had been diagnosed with a depressive disorder, how many days they considered themselves to be in poor mental health in the past month ( 0 days, 1 to 13 days or 14 to 30 days), if they had suffered a heart attack, stroke or chest pain, and if they had risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
1 in 5 adults reported being depressed or frequently depressed
Risk factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, being overweight or obese, smoking, diabetes, poor physical activity and diet. People who had two or more of these risk factors were considered to have poor cardiovascular health.
One in five adults said they had depression or felt frequently depressed, with the study authors noting that there may have been higher rates in the final year of analysis, which was the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. The study finds that, compared to people who reported no days of poor mental health in the past 30 days, those who reported up to 13 days of poor mental health had a 1.5 times higher risk of cardiovascular disease, while those who were 14 days or more had double that.
Abundant Evidence Links Cardiovascular Disease and Depression
Associations between poor mental health and cardiovascular disease did not differ significantly by sex or residential area (urban/rural). The findings add to a growing body of evidence linking cardiovascular disease to depression in young and middle-aged adults, and suggest the relationship between the two may begin in early adulthood.
According to the authors, the relationship between depression and heart disease is a two-way street: depression increases the risk of heart problems, and people with heart disease suffer from depression. That’s why they recommend improving screening and monitoring of cardiovascular disease in people with mental health conditions, and vice versa, to improve overall heart health. The researchers also call for new research to better examine how depression affects cardiovascular health over time.