Depression, Stress Increase Early Mortality Via Heart Issues

There's no doubt that a fatty diet is bad for your heart. But did you know that stress and depression can exacerbate your risk of cardiovascular issues even more?

New findings published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes show that stress and depression can take a serious toll on your health.

For the study, researchers examined 5,000 people with coronary heart disease who were 45 years and older. Participants shared their symptoms of depression and stress during in-home examinations on questionnaires that were conducted from 2003 through 2007.

Findings revealed that about 6 percent of participants reported high stress levels and high depression. A six-year follow-up also showed 1,337 heart-attack deaths among people in the study.

"The increase in risk accompanying high stress and high depressive symptoms was robust and consistent across demographics, medical history, medication use and health risk behaviors," the study's lead author, Carmela Alcántara, an associate research scientist at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, said in a statement.

Furthermore, researchers found that people who had only high stress or only high depressive symptoms but not the other symptom at the same time did not have an increased risk of death or heart attack.