SALT LAKE CITY — The relationship between depression and heart disease is a complicated one at best. Researchers at Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute are trying to untangle the links between the two diseases.
People with depression have been shown to have a higher risk for heart disease, suffer worse cardiac outcomes and have higher death rates after cardiac surgery. However, heart disease and heart surgery has also been shown to trigger depression in patients.
Researchers at Intermountain Medical Center Health compatred the surgical outcomes of 118 heart patients with and without depression and found that patients with moderate to severe depression had a death rate four times higher than those without depression.
In a surprising twist, however, they also found that the risk of death could be cut by 74 percent with cardiovascular rehabilitation.
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