(Ernie Mundell – HealthDay News) – The depression during or after a pregnancy could be linked to a increased risk of heart problems in the women decades laterwarns recent research.
The call “perinatal” depression was linked to a 36 percent higher chance of developing heart disease over the next 20 years, reported a Swedish team led by Dr. Emma Bränn of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. She said the findings could open new avenues for protecting women’s hearts.
“We know that perinatal depression is both preventable and treatable, and for many people it is the first episode of depression they have experienced,” Bränn said. “Our findings provide more reasons to ensure that the maternal care is holistic, with equal attention to physical and mental health”. The findings were published in the June 18 issue of the journal European Heart Journal.
In the study, the Stockholm team looked at the medical records of more than 55,500 Swedish women who were diagnosed with perinatal depression between 2001 and 2014, and compared them with another group of almost 546,000 Swedish women who had also given birth during that period. but who were not diagnosed with perinatal depression.
They tracked the women’s heart health through 2020.
Any history of depression at the time of pregnancy was linked to higher odds of later heart disease. Although 6.4 percent of women with such a history developed heart problems in 2020, that was true for only 3.7 percent of women who had not had perinatal depression, the study found. That equates to a 36% increase in relative risk.
Similar trends were seen with hypertension (50 percent more likely among women with perinatal depression) and heart failure (36 percent more likely).
Exact links between perinatal depression and heart disease remain unclear. A subset of the study, which looked at heart disease risks between women with perinatal depression and their unaffected sisters, found a 20 percent higher odds of heart disease in sisters with a history of perinatal depression.
“The slightly lower difference in risk between sisters suggests that there could be genetic or familial factors partly involvedBränn noted in a news release from the European Society of Cardiology.
“There could also be other factors involved, as is the case with the link between other forms of depression and cardiovascular disease,” he added. “These include alterations in the immune system, oxidative stress and lifestyle changes implicated in major depression.”
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Amani Meaidi of the Danish Cancer Society noted that Treating postpartum depression now could provide an added benefit for women’s hearts.
“It wasn’t until last year, in 2023, that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first oral treatment for postpartum depression, making the treatment much more accessible to the millions of women who suffer from this condition,” she wrote.
Mealdi said that “the future will reveal whether appropriate therapy for perinatal depression” ends up reducing rates of heart disease in women as they age.
More information. Learn more about the signs of perinatal depression from the American Psychiatric Association.
SOURCE: European Society of Cardiology, press release, June 18, 2024
*Ernie Mundell HealthDay Reporters ©The New York Times 2024
