HealthDay (10/17, Gotkine) reports, “Depressive symptoms in adults are associated with mortality in a graded association,” investigators concluded after conducting “a prospective cohort study to examine the association between depressive symptoms and mortality in a large, nationally representative sample of 23,694 U.S. adults.” The findings were published online Oct. 9 in JAMA Network Open. “ Risk of all-cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and ischemic fears disease (IHD) mortality was 62%, 79%, and 121% higher, respectively, for those with moderate to severe depressive symptoms compared to those without depressive symptoms. Associations were largely consistent across subgroups and in all sensitivity analyses.”

Related Links:

— “Graded Association ID’d for Depressive Symptoms With Mortality Risk,”Elana Gotkine, HealthDay , October 17, 2023

According to HealthDay (10/16), “For women with myocardial infarction (MI), stress and depression are common at the time of MI and two months later,” a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology shows. Investigators “found that women with MINOCA (myocardial infarction with nonobstructive coronary arteries) were younger and more diverse than women with MI-CAD (myocardial infarction-coronary artery disease).”

Related Links:

— “Stress, Depression Common Among Women With Myocardial Infarction,”Elana Gotkine, HealthDay , October 16, 2023

Medscape (10/16, Banks, Subscription Publication) reports, “Patients who need medications for opioid use disorder (OUD) should continue to receive them prior to surgery, rather than stopping those drugs, as has been the convention,” according to findings from “a new analysis of more than five million surgeries presented at Anesthesiology 2023.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (10/16, Haelle) reports, “People taking antidepressants lost a similar amount of weight on semaglutide 2.4 mg (Wegovy) compared with those not taking antidepressants, according to a post-hoc analysis of four STEP trials” presented at the ObesityWeek annual meeting. The study revealed that “participants on antidepressants taking the GLP-1 receptor agonist lost an average 10.7% to 19% of their baseline body weight compared to a 9.5% to 15.9% loss in participants not taking antidepressants.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HCPlive (10/16, Brooks) reports, “Hospitalized patients using mirtazapine, nortriptyline, and trazodone are at a greater risk of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI),” researchers concluded in a study that compared “48,720 patients developed CDI…to 55,615,700 who did not.” The findings were published in the July-Sept. Issue of the journal Arquivos de Gastroenterologia.

Related Links:

— “Antidepressant Use Linked to Increased Risk of Hospital-Onset C Diff,”Abigail Brooks, HCPlive, October 16, 2023