Word: depressionitis
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Whooley's team studied the depressed group further. Researchers systematically adjusted for each potential risk factor to figure out whether it was mediating the link between depression and heart disease. Physiological factors, such as serotonin levels or CRP, for example, appeared not to have much impact. But when researchers adjusted...
The findings suggest that the effect of depression on heart health may have less to do with changes in hormones or other biochemical pathways, and more to do with behavior. Compared with other people, notes Whooley, the depressed are less healthy overall - they're less likely to exercise or take...
The study may even help to explain why treating depression alone - rather than addressing patients' mental state and accompanying behavioral changes - has not proven successful in reducing the risk of heart disease. "We have always looked at certain behaviors like physical activity and smoking in isolation with respect to their...
And while researchers are intrigued by the question of which comes first - depression or heart disease - the study points out that, in practice, it doesn't really matter. "It's hard to tease out which came first," says Whooley. "But our bottom line is that regardless of which is coming...
Even so, a recession is under way. The goal now, said economist and Obama aide Austan Goolsbee, is to prevent a depression. Obama also sees in the current mess a rare confluence of both crisis and opportunity that gives him the chance to remake the U.S. economy. After months in...