Exercise Eases Depression and Heart Disease

Reported December 03, 2008

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Patients suffering from both coronary heart disease and symptoms of depression can cut their risk of cardiovascular events by exercising.

It has long been known that depression is linked to the development of cardiovascular disease in healthy patients and recurrent events in patients with cardiovascular disease; however the reason for this association has been unknown. Researchers at the VA Medical Center, San Francisco, set out to answer this question.

In a study, they followed 1,017 outpatients with stable coronary heart disease for around 4.8 years. Symptoms of depression were measured using a questionnaire and various models were used to evaluate cardiovascular events, such as heart failure, heart attack and stroke.

They found participants with depression were twice as likely to experience cardiovascular events. In addition, certain health behaviors reduced the link between depression and cardiovascular events. For example, physical inactivity was associated with a 44 percent greater rate of cardiovascular events. Researchers say patients with symptoms of depression are also less likely to follow dietary, exercise and medication recommendations.

“These findings raise the hypothesis that the increased risk of cardiovascular events associated with depression could potentially be preventable with behavior modification, especially exercise,” study authors wrote. “Given the relatively modest effects of traditional therapies on depressive symptoms in patients with heart disease, there is increasing urgency to identify interventions that not only reduce depressive symptoms, but also directly target the mechanisms by which depression leads to cardiovascular events.”

SOURCE: JAMA, 2008;300[20]:2379-2388