Heart disease, diabetes, and depression can be a deadly combination. In people with coronary artery disease, the presence of diabetes or depression increases the risk of dying from heart disease. The risk is even higher when both diabetes and severe depression are present. Researchers from the Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, USA, studied 907 patients with coronary artery disease, which occurs when the arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle (coronary arteries) become hardened and narrowed. A total of 325 of the patients also had type 2 diabetes. All of the study subjects were assessed for depression using standard methods. During more than four years the patients were followed, 135 patients died. It was found that depression and diabetes were both associated with increased death, independent of age, gender, body weight, and heart function. Among diabetics with coronary artery disease, having severe symptoms of depression further increased the risk by roughly 25 percent. However, the researchers were surprised to find that mild depression did not affect survival, and excess risk is confined to diabetics with coronary artery disease and moderate-to-severe depression.
American Psychosomatic Society Annual meeting,
March 2007