HealthDay (11/18, Preidt) reports that a study based on data from the Jackson Heart Study in Jackson, MS and published recently in Circulation: Quality and Outcomes suggests that black Americans with depression were more likely to have a heart attack or stroke.
The study covered over 3,300 black patients aged 21 to 94. Of those, 22 percent were diagnosed with major depression at the beginning of the study and those were over the course of the first ten years of the study more likely to have heart disease (5.6% to 3.6%) and stroke (3.7% to 2.6%) than were patients who did not have depression.
Patients with depression were also more likely to have “chronic health problems, get less exercise, have lower incomes, smoke, and have a higher body mass index.”
Related Links:
— “Depressed Black Americans May Be at Risk for Heart Woes,” Robert Preidt, Health Day, November 17, 2015.