Depression is a feeling of intense sadness that sticks around for a long time. It affects many people all around the world and can change many parts of a person’s life.
What Was the Study About?
A group of scientists from Ireland, led by Dr. Robert P. Murphy, wanted to see if people who have symptoms of depression are more likely to get a stroke.
They also wanted to see if depression affected how well people recovered after a stroke.
How Did They Study This?
The scientists studied 26,877 adults from all around the world, including Europe, Asia, America, the Middle East, and Africa. These adults were part of a bigger study called the INTERSTROKE study.
About half of these adults, over 13,000 people, had a stroke. The scientists compared them to a similar number of people who hadn’t had a stroke. They were the same age, sex, and race or ethnic group.
The adults answered questions about things that can affect stroke risk, like high blood pressure and diabetes.
They also answered questions about whether they had felt really sad or depressed for two weeks or more in the last year.
What Did They Find Out?
The scientists found that 18% of the people who had a stroke had signs of depression. This was more than the 14% of people who didn’t have a stroke but had signs of depression.
After considering things like age, sex, education, and lifestyle, the scientists found that people with signs of depression before a stroke were 46% more likely to have a stroke.
The more signs of depression people had, the more likely they were to have a stroke. If they had five or more signs, they were 54% more likely.
If they had three or four signs, they were 58% more likely, and if they had one or two signs, they were 35% more likely.
People with signs of depression didn’t have worse strokes, but they had a harder time getting better after a stroke.
Why Does This Matter?
Dr. Murphy said, “Our results show that signs of depression can not only affect mental health but also increase the risk of stroke.”
He believes that doctors should pay attention to these signs of depression. They could use this information to help plan ways to prevent strokes.
One thing to remember is that the adults only answered questions about depression at the start of the study. So, the scientists couldn’t see how depression might affect things over time.
If you care about brain health, please read studies about how the Mediterranean diet could protect your brain health, and diets high in flavonoids could help reduce stroke risk.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about antioxidants that could help reduce dementia risk, and common high blood pressure drug may treat vascular dementia.
The study was published in Neurology.
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