Written by Fatima Yasser
Saturday, February 11, 2023 01:00 AM
Young people who feel down or depressed are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and have poorer heart health, according to a new study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine that analyzed data from more than half a million people ages 18-18. The findings add to a growing body of evidence linking CVD and depression in young and middle-aged adults, and suggest that the relationship between the two could begin in early adulthood.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found that young adults who self-reported feeling depressed or having poor mental health days had higher rates of heart attacks, strokes, and risk factors for heart disease than their peers who did not have health issues. mental.
When you are stressed, anxious, or depressed, you may feel fatigued, and your heart rate and blood pressure will also rise. It is also common that feeling down may lead to making poor lifestyle choices such as smoking, drinking alcohol, sleeping less, and not being physically healthy, says Garima Sharma, Professor of Medicine. Associate at Johns Hopkins Medicine and senior author of the study, All the Adverse Circumstances Over which Negativity Affects Your Heart.
Sharma and her colleagues examined data from 593,616 adults who participated in the Behavioral Risk Factor Monitoring System, a nationally representative self-reported survey conducted between 2017 and 2020. The survey included questions about whether they had been told they had a depressive disorder before. ..
how many days have they experienced poor mental health in the past month (0 days, 1-13 days or 14-30 days), whether they have had a heart attack, stroke or chest pain, and if they have risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Risk factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, being overweight, obesity, smoking, diabetes, poor physical activity and diet, and people with two or more of these risk factors were considered to have suboptimal cardiovascular health.
and a flowchart of the analytical sample. BRFSS stands for Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and for CVD and Cardiovascular Disease
. And one in five adults reported feeling depressed or feeling down frequently, with the study noting that there could be higher rates during the final year of the study, which was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of American adults who have experienced depression or anxiety jumped from 36.4% to 41.5% during the first year of the pandemic, with the highest spike among people ages 18 to 29.
Overall, the study revealed, those who reported feeling down for several days had a stronger association with cardiovascular disease and poorer heart health. Compared to people who reported no bad mental health days in the past 30 days, participants who reported up to 13 Days of poor mental health had 1.5 times higher odds of developing cardiovascular disease, while those with 14 or more days of poor mental health had twice the odds.
The associations between poor mental health and cardiovascular disease did not differ significantly by gender or urban and rural status.
Our study suggests that we need to prioritize mental health among young people and possibly increase screening and monitoring for heart disease in people with mental health conditions and vice versa to improve overall heart health.