Depression boosts post-heart attack deaths

BOCA RATON, Fla., Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Depression nearly triples the risk of death following a heart attack -- even after factoring in other heart attack risk factors, a U.S. study found.

The study, of 360 depressed, post-myocardial infarction -- heart attack -- patients tracked for more than six years, found that those who did not recover from their depression in the first six months were more than twice as likely to die.

"There is an unequivocal link between depression and heart disease, but it is not clear what causes this link," Dr. Alexander Glassman of Columbia University said in a statement. "There is a whole series of factors that link depression and heart disease and we are just beginning to understand how antidepressants act in people who have these conditions together."

Additional risk factors that tend to be major medical predictors of death from a heart attack include the severity of the heart attack and variability in various measures of heart function during recovery, Glassman said.

The findings are being presented in the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology annual meeting in Boca Raton, Fla.