Depression Could Double Stroke Risk In People Over 50

Published: May 13, 2015 04:35pm ET by LiveScience. People who have depression for a long time may be at increased risk for stroke, a new study suggests. Researchers found that adults ages 50 and older who had symptoms of depression that lasted more than two years were twice as likely to have a stroke in the following two years, compared with men and women of similar age with no signs of depression. "The exact pathway through which depressive symptoms may lead to stroke remains unclear, and is an important area for future research," said study lead author Paola Gilsanz, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Gilsanz said she suspects the reasons for the link could be related to behavioral risk factors (e.g., people with depression may get less physical activity or may have a tendency to smoke cigarettes) or biological factors (e.g., body-wide inflammation, high blood pressure, diabetes or high blood-lipid levels). In the study, published today (May 13) in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the researchers reviewed data collected from more than 16,000 adults age 50 and older who had never had a stroke. Every two years during the 12-year study, researchers interviewed the men and women, to evaluate their symptoms of depression and to find out whether they'd had a stroke. For each participant, the researchers compared the results from two successive interviews to determine whether the person showed any signs...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news