Heart Attack and Gloom Not Linked

Depression treatment fails to extend the life of heart attack patients.

By Colin Allen, published on June 01, 2003

A smile a day may not keep the doctor away. Researchers have found that treating heart attack victims for depression does not lessen the risk of another life-threatening cardiac arrest. Removing the well-known risk factor did not seem to help heart attack victims live longer.

Robert Carney, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry at Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, tracked 2,481 heart attack patients from eight clinical centers. In the group, 38 percent suffered depression and 26 percent felt they had low social support. Half of the patients were assigned to receive depression treatment and the other half did not.

Subjects in the treatment group received cognitive behavioral therapy, and in some cases, received antidepressant medication. After 29 months, 76 percent of the patients in both groups were alive and had not had a second heart attack. Those who received treatment were more socially functional and less depressed.

Researchers are disappointed with the findings. Social isolation and depression are strong risk factors for heart attacks. A quarter of heart attack victims suffer from such conditions, which increase the risk of death by 300 to 400 percent. As of now, only a quarter of heart attack victims are being treated for isolation and depression.

Still, researchers do not consider their results definitive, as they did not fully examine the impact of antidepressants. The results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association's issue devoted to depression.