Word: heart
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There is little doubt that depression is bad for the heart. Much as fatty diets, cigarette smoking, inactivity and obesity are linked with an increased risk of heart disease, recent evidence suggests that mental health has a similarly powerful impact. The question has always been...
...researchers provide the first data that may explain the association. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the findings suggest that depression contributes to heart disease indirectly - by fostering unhealthy behaviors like smoking - rather than directly. Certain biological factors linked with depression, such as inflammation and the levels of brain chemicals like serotonin, may play some role in heart health, researchers say, but the new study found that the factors that most increased heart disease risk in depressed people were the ones you might expect: lack of exercise and smoking...
...looked at all sorts of biological markers that could potentially play a role in linking depression and heart disease," says Dr. Mary Whooley, an internist at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco, and lead author of the new study. "We measured all of those, and found that they did not explain the association. All we needed to do was to ask the patient how much they were exercising to be able to explain the link...
Whooley studied more than 1,000 patients with heart disease at the VA for nearly five years. The patients filled out regular questionnaires to determine their mood state, and were asked yearly to report on any heart-related events. Researchers took blood and urine samples to measure their levels of omega-3 fatty acids, cortisol and the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein, as well as the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine - all agents that may be involved in both depression and heart disease. In all, about 20% of the participants reported depressive symptoms; over five years, those patients...
...their patients turning to foreign hospitals for care that they considered dangerously cheap. But where many U.S. medical professionals saw great peril, countries like Cuba saw opportunities. Beginning in the late 1980s, the island country started programs to lure foreigners from India, Latin America and Europe for eye surgeries, heart procedures and cosmetic procedures. The Cuban government said it welcomed 2,000 medical tourists in 1990. (See pictures from an X-Ray studio...