According to statistics, heart disease is the major cause of death worldwide. Likewise, depression has been termed as the leading cause of disability, affecting over 300 million people worldwide.

How many people in India are affected by heart disease and depression?

Just like in many countries, heart disease continues to be the major cause of deaths in India. According to reports by the Global Burden of Disease, heart disease was the cause of more than 2.1 million deaths in 2015. This represented over 25 percent of all deaths in India. On the other hand, over 17 million deaths in India were attributed to heart diseases in 2016.

How is heart disease and depression related?

Recently, a significant body of research was able to establish a connection between these two conditions. According to the study, the biological and chemical factors which have been known to trigger depression were found to also have an influence in a person’s risk of developing heart diseases. Also, those people suffering from both depression and cardiovascular diseases have been found to be more likely to die from heart disease compared to those patients who only suffer from heart disease alone. In fact, the more serious the level of depression, the more the patient is likely to develop or die from heart disease.

On the other hand, those people suffering from depression and have no any histories of heart diseases were found to develop heart disease faster compared to the general population. Similarly, those people who already had cardiovascular diseases, especially those with heart attack, were at an even greater risk of developing depression.

Studying heart disease and depression risk

In a recent study, the researchers examined data that was collected from approximately 370,000 people who were between the ages of 40 and 69. First, they wanted to determine whether having a history of heart disease in a family could also increase the risk of developing a major depression, which they found to be possible. In fact, the risk of a person who had lost one or both parents to heart disease developing depression was even increased by up to 20-percent. Second, the researchers wondered whether a person’s genes were also able to determine this link. To determine this, they calculated the genetic risk score for coronary heart disease after which they discovered that there was no such connection.

From this, the researchers were able to reveal that heart disease and depression did not share a common genetic predisposition. This in turn led them to start wondering whether there were some environmental factors which were able to raise a person’s risk of developing these two conditions.

In some cases, the doctor will make use of an ECG monitoring service to track the patient’s condition. An ECG monitoring service records the electrical activity of a patient’s heart and reports the results to the doctor.

Challenges of recognizing depression symptoms

Depression and cardiovascular diseases tend to carry overlapping symptoms such as low energy, fatigue, and difficulty doing daily routines and sleeping. In fact, routine screening is recommended for all those people with heart problems as more and more evidence is showing depression to be a risk factor for heart disease. A Holter monitor can be used to monitor a depressed patient’s heart rate. This would give the treating physician an idea of the patient’s regular heart patterns.

Depression is usually caused by a combination of biological psychological, environmental, and genetic factors. This explains why those younger women who suffer from depression and cardiovascular diseases tend to do worse as compared to younger men. Generally, women play a very important role in the society and in families which in turn leads them to become more prone to stress.

Effective treatment could help the heart and the mind

Although there is a lot of overlapping in the various risk factors for developing depression and cardiovascular diseases, living a healthy lifestyle can greatly benefit both conditions. If you are currently on medication for treating depression, you should not hesitate from asking your doctor concerning those medications risk of causing heart disease. You can also request humor her to recommend you an ECG monitoring service to help you diagnose your heart for cardiovascular diseases. Likewise, if you are suffering from heart disease but you start noticing signs of depression, you should consider remote cardiac monitoring. This will help you to better monitor your heart for any underlying issues.

For those individuals trying to recover from a heart attack or any other severe cardiac event, more specialized evaluation procedures and treatments is required. One of the best ways to evaluate your condition is by using a portable holter monitor. This is an easy to use device that you wear to better monitor your heart condition and also send real-time analysis to your doctor as you go about with your daily routine. In addition to these, choosing healthy lifestyle practices like exercising, eating a balanced diet, and managing stress can also help a lot in preventing or reducing heart health and mental health symptoms.

References:

1.https://wwwncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3146226/ 2.https://www.impella.com/blog/why-people-with-depression-have-higher-risk of heart disease/ 3.https://uihc.org/health-topics/understanding-link-between-depression-and-heart-disease

4.https//www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heart_vascular_institute/clinical_servicaskenters_excellence/womens_card

5.https://www.psycom.net/depression.central.heart.diseasehtml

6.https://wwwmedicalnewstoday.com/articles/324748.php

Author bio:

Sathya Kumar is the Founder & CEO of Cardiac Rhythm .Cardiac Rhythm’s biosensor is an unobtrusive, easy to use the device for the patient’s long-term Holter monitoring, cardiac ECG monitoring and real-time mobile cardiac telemetry monitoring. The innovative, portable biosensor remotely monitors the health of patients and provides physicians with deeper clinical-grade data insights.