Mild depression may raise heart failure death risk

[HuckleB]

Mild depression may raise heart failure death risk

http://www.heartcenteronline.com/myheartdr/home/research-detail.cfm?reutersid=5145

"Heart failure patients who are even mildly depressed may have a poorer prognosis than others with the heart ailment, researchers reported Monday.

Their study of more than 1,000 adults with heart failure found that those who were suffering from depression -- or even "sub-depressive" symptoms -- were more likely than other patients to die over the next seven years.

Compared with patients without depression, men and women who were classified as having depression on a standard screening test were 44 percent more likely to die over the study period. But the risk was even greater when the researchers included heart failure patients who were just shy of the cut-off point used to define depression.

Heart failure is a chronic condition in which the heart is unable to pump blood efficiently enough to meet the body's needs. When the heart cannot properly fill up with blood or pump it out with enough force, fluid builds up in the lungs and throughout the body, leading to problems such as breathlessness, fatigue and swelling in the extremities.

..."

[Vanje]

1. Uh oh

Well shit!

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Wonder how they can tell the difference between cause and effect vs

concurring events? How can they tell if it isn't that the depression and the heart problems aren't both caused by some other third factor that raises the risk?
I think this is not an uncommon error in statistical studies.

[Dear Maggie]

4. You sure hit the nail on the head

I bet the Vioxx and Celebrex group would like to know that there are a high percentage of those who take their 'arthritis' medications who are already at high risk for 'heart attack'

This would be from the autoimmune hemolytic anemia that 2-butoxyethanol causes. www.valdezlink.com/acute.htm and it causes the lots of other things, but something else gets blamed

Notice the rapid heart rate, the shortness of breath, and if you look up the full list of symptoms, also DEPRESSION, etc etc

I bet the tobacco companies might like to know that this chemical causes lung cancer too. Probably 7 out of 25 people are in some way affected, if Walter Reid Medical Center is right about the 'gulf war syndrome' vets being no more harmed than the general population (so that's 28% of a 700,000 force so far).

Also there is a rare cancer of the joints that Robert Urich had that can go to the lungs, too.

Well, the fall guy is something else, ALWAYS.

[HuckleB]

5. That's why one calls it a correlation, not causation.

Scientists worth their weight understand that more information and more studies are always needed to further knowledge and to confirm or dispute what is thought with the knowledge currently available.

[HuckleB]

3. On the other side: Laughter helps blood vessels function better

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=20903