New light on link between depression and heart attack

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

People on antidepressants have a higher risk of a heart attack but this may be related more to underlying depression.
Previous work has suggested a link between depression and heart disease. Now a team at Nottingham City Hospital, England, presents research on 60,000 patients having a first heart attack. This showed an increased risk of heart attack within a month of being prescribed an antidepressant drug.

The study showed that those who had been prescribed the older tricyclic antidepressants were twice as likely to have a heart attack in the next seven days as those who had not had these drugs. This was also true for those on newer drugs.

These findings might suggest that antidepressant drugs increase the risk of heart problems. However, after taking the drugs for more than a month, the risk of a heart attack actually reduced. This suggests that underlying depression, rather than the drugs to treat it increase the risk of heart problems.

Source
Heart March 2005 Volume 91 pages 465-471

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