Depression Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Depression, including details on clinical depression, medication, symptoms, treatment, counselling, therapy.

Depressive symptoms are independently predictive of carotid atherosclerosis.

Haas DC, Davidson KW, Schwartz DJ, Rieckmann N, Roman MJ, Pickering TG, Gerin W, Schwartz JE

Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA. donald.haas@msnyuhealth.org

The investigators tested whether depressive symptoms were predictive of carotid atherosclerosis, a marker of coronary atherosclerosis. Healthy participants (n = 219) underwent the baseline assessment of cardiovascular risk factors, including self-reported depressive symptoms, and were assessed for carotid plaque at 10-year follow-up. Adjusting for baseline cardiovascular risk factors, participants with elevated depression scores at baseline were >2 times as likely as those with no depressive symptoms to have carotid plaque.

Published 7 February 2005 in Am J Cardiol, 95(4): 547-50.
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