Heart attack risk higher if depressed

ST. LOUIS, March 4 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say heart attack patients who are depressed have a higher risk of sudden death for up to five years.

The study, published online in ahead of print in the Journal of Affective Disorders, not only linked major depression to a higher risk of death, but also found minor depression was associated with a significant increase in mortality risk -- even after adjusting for risk factors such as age, smoking, hypertension, gender and diabetes.

"There's a two- to four-fold increase in a person's risk of dying following a heart attack if they also happen to be depressed," study lead author Robert M. Carney of Washington University in St Louis said in a statement. "Previously we thought the impact of depression was strongest for the first three to six months following a heart attack and then gradually dropped off within a couple of years. Instead, we found that the effect lasts for at least five years."

Researchers also from Duke University Medical Center, Harvard University, Yale University, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the Mayo Clinic followed more than 750 heart attack patients. A little less than half were diagnosed with depression.

In the five years following a heart attack, 106 patients died. Of those, 62 had been diagnosed with depression, 44 had not.