Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Heart Disease and Depression Up Heart Failure Risk Use of antidepressants makes little difference, study finds

Depression increases the risk that people with heart disease caused by blockage of coronary arteries will develop heart failure, a new study finds.

That finding was to be expected, said Heidi May, an epidemiologist at the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah, and lead author of the study, because earlier research had found that depression increases the risk of heart failure in otherwise healthy people. Heart failure is a progressive loss of the ability to pump blood.

What was not expected was the finding that treatment with antidepressant drugs did not reduce the risk of heart failure among people with depression in the group May studied -- 13,708 people who were diagnosed with coronary artery disease.

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