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A new study by British scientists has shown that psychotherapy for depression reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease in people over 45 years old.
- In people who suffer from cardiovascular diseases, the frequency of depression is higher than in people who are normal, - experts explained. – Patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder have an approximately 72% higher risk of CVD than those without depression.
Depression is a modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which in turn is the leading cause of death worldwide.
- If depression is a modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, it should be treated, - the scientists said. - This will help reduce the risk of developing the disease. So, psychotherapy or "talk therapy" is an effective way to treat mental illnesses through discussion, listening, and counseling.
Scientists have analyzed how reducing the symptoms of depression with the help of psychotherapeutic intervention affects the risk of developing CVD. The researchers used the electronic medical records of 636 British adults over 955 with depression who had received psychotherapy. The participants did not have CVD or dementia. The average age of the participants was 45 years. 55% of them are women.
Participants' depression levels were measured before and after therapy using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), which scores nine items from zero ("never") to three ("almost daily"). These factors include pleasure from doing any activity, feeling depressed, trouble sleeping or sleeping too much, low energy, and trouble concentrating.
Depression was defined as a score of “10” or higher on the PHQ-9 scale. Improvement in depressive symptoms was defined as a decrease of six or more points on the PHQ-9 between baseline and end of treatment.
Patients were followed to determine whether CVD had developed.
- If this happened, they were excluded from the study in order to reduce the possibility that the cause of depression was a previously undiagnosed CVD - experts explained.
After following the participants for 3 years, the researchers found that depression symptoms improved in 59% of participants and did not improve in 41%. Compared with those who had no improvement, improvement in depression scores was associated with a 12% reduced risk of any form of CVD, 11% of coronary heart disease, 12% of stroke, and 19% of all-cause mortality .
The correlation was stronger in persons aged 45 to 60 years.
Improvements in depressive symptoms are associated with a 15% reduction in CVD risk. In addition, this age group with improved depression scores was 22% less likely to die during follow-up compared to those with no improvement in depression scores. In persons over 60 years of age, the decrease was 15%.
The researchers say that the magnitude of the reduction in cardiovascular disease risk after psychotherapy is comparable to the effects seen after low-fat or low-carbohydrate diets that modify CVD risk.
- Our study emphasizes the need for early intervention by specialists in the treatment of mental health, - they concluded.
