Wagamaga OP t1_j6o4zry wrote
Young adults with depression or overall poor mental health report more heart attacks, strokes and risk factors for cardiovascular disease than their peers without mental health issues, new research shows.
The findings, published recently in the Journal of the American Heart Association, add to a large body of evidence linking cardiovascular disease risk and death with depression, but leave unanswered questions about how one may lead to the other.
"While the relationship between heart disease and depression is likely to be bidirectional, it's important to prioritize mental health among younger adults as this may be beneficial in reducing heart disease and improving overall heart health," said the study's lead author, Dr. Yaa Adoma Kwapong, a postdoctoral research fellow at Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Baltimore.
Kwapong and her colleagues wanted to better understand how mental health may affect cardiovascular disease and its risk factors earlier in life. They analyzed data for 593,616 adults who were 35 years old on average and took part in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a self-reported nationally representative survey, between 2017 and 2020.
Survey participants reported whether they had ever been told they had a depressive disorder and the number of days they experienced poor mental health during the past month. They also reported whether they had experienced a heart attack, stroke or chest pain, a condition known as angina, or have had cardiovascular disease risk factors including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, being overweight or having obesity, smoking, diabetes, physical inactivity and not eating enough fruits and vegetables. People who had two or more of these risk factors were considered to have suboptimal cardiovascular health
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