Depression, severe mental illness and loneliness not heart friendly

New Delhi, Sunday, September 13, 2009: Depression, severe mental illness and loneliness are linked to heart disease and dementia said Dr KK Aggarwal President, Heart Care Foundation of India, MTNL Perfect Heart Mela and Director, IMA AKN Sinha Institute.

Quoting Dr. Jesse Stewart, formerly of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr Aggarwal said that there is correlation between depression and hardening of the arteries.

The arteries of those who are most depressed had narrowed twice as much as those who were least depressed, in the study. Hardening of the arteries is a precursor to a heart attack or stroke.
Depression may also upset the body’s regulation of glands that release chemicals governing energy level and growth, and alter the functioning of cells responsible for blood clotting.

Hardening of the arteries leads to an overreaction of the immune system and the resulting inflammation is known to release chemicals that can cause the diseases.

Quoting a British study, Dr Aggarwal said that severely mentally ill people are more than three times as likely to die from coronary heart disease and stroke than people not suffering from mental illness. Mental illness more than doubled the risk of dying from heart disease for people up to age 75.
The risk of dying from heart disease was even higher among those taking antipsychotic medications.