Heart Problems Due To Depression
By: Robert NamTotal Views: 119, Word Count: 953,
Through out your life you sometimes experience constant stress, sadness, unhappiness, or grief. Often when you experience any tragedy, death of loved one, difficulty in marriage, or loss of job, you feel very depressed. Depression can lead to several heart problems.
Elderly people are more likely to suffer from heart problem due to depression. In addition, unfortunately, they are the least likely to seek a treatment for depression. Nineteen to thirty percent of people above the age of 65, experience the sign of heart problem. Generally, a woman gets depressed easily than men get. Those people who show signs of depression, have a 40 percent higher risk involved for developing a coronary heart disease.
Is Depression and Heart problem interlinked?
Do you think it would be correct to say that depression and heart problems are interlinked, the answer is obviously -YES, it is! Depression, stress, and anxiety lead to impair the persons mental well-being, which may lead to angina pain or discomfort. Depression can lead to increase of hormones in the nervous system resulting in increase in blood pressure level or faster heart beat rate and increased pressure on the heart.
This increases the risk of heart problems like Coronary heart disease, heart attack, stroke, heart failure , and cardiovascular heart diseases. According to the latest survey, it was also found that people suffering from depression feels as its not worth living life so, sometimes they also tend to harm themself. Heart problems are also more common in people with rheumatoid arthritis than the general population.
Obvious Reason of Depression, which tend to Heart problems.
Following are some, few obvious reason that explains why the people suffering from depression are more likely to suffer from the heart disease.
- Depressed people are more likely to smoke, avoid the exercise, and drink an excessive amount of alcohol.
- They do not take proper heart medication, if they already suffer from any heart disease
- Depression may result in increasing the production of fatty acids and damaging the lining of the blood vessels.
- Mental stress, which results due to depression, may increase plaque formation in the arteries.
Symptoms of Depression
Following are some of the symptoms of the depression, which leads to heart problems.
· Sad or empty mood
· Loss of pleasure or interest in common activities of life
· Decreased energy level
· Loss of weight or in some cases gain of weight
· Irritability
· Excessive crying
· Chronic aches and pains
· Feelings of guilt, helplessness or worthlessness
· Difficulty in making any decisions.
Causes of Depression That Leads To Heart Problems
The causes of depression are very complex. Genetic factors, biological factors, and environmental factors lead to the development of depression. In many people , depression can be one of the major cause which leads to heart problems but , in others a cause may be unknown.
- Bio- chemical. It leads to depression. This causes due to abnormalities in the level of certain chemicals in the brain.
- Heredity. Some of the depression seem to present in families it self. Research is going on to find out, which genes leads to the development of depression. Self-medication can be one of the best options for the cause. In some cases , it happens that you may feel depressed even if no one in your family feels any type of depression which leads to heart problems
- Personality traits. People having a personality traits like negative thinking, excess worry, pessimism, low self esteem, hypersensitive to rejection, sense of superioty, over dependence on others leads to depression.
- Some situations. Some difficult events in life like, change, persistent stress, and the most important loss may cause levels of neurotransmitters to become unbalanced, which leads to depression. Even the happy moments like, childbirth, marriage or some other function events may opt to increase the depression, which results in certain heart problem.
- Medical conditions. Depression is more likely to happen with certain medications. These conditions are heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and hypothyroidism.
- Medications. Some medications also results in depression like sleeping pills, antibiotics, and blood pressure medicines.
- Other important causes of the heart problem due to depression are advanced age, lower socio economic status, stress full life, chronic medication, personality disorder, emotional stress, obesity, living alone, and co- occurring illness.
When someone is depressed, they feel down most of the times, they don’t look forward to enjoy anything in life. Heart problems are very common among people suffering from depression.
About the Author
Dr. Robert Nam is a well known heart specialist and has done postgraduate training in cardiology at the national heart hospital, the London chest hospital and UCL hospital, London. He was also engaged in research at the national heart and lung institute. Nowadays he is working as a consultant cardiologist at UCL hospital, London.
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