Scientists suggest another risk factor that can almost double the risk of stroke.
According to research published in the online edition of Neurology®, those with depressive symptoms may be at an elevated risk of suffering a stroke.
It was also discovered that post-stroke recovery was worse in patients who showed signs of depression.
According to Robert P. Murphy, MBBS, from the University of Galway in Ireland, depression has a global impact and can significantly affect a person’s life.
The study conducted by the author offers a comprehensive overview of depression and its association with stroke risk, considering several variables such as the participants’ symptoms, lifestyle choices, and use of antidepressants.
The findings indicate that there is a correlation between depressive symptoms and an elevated risk of stroke, which appears to be consistent across different age groups and geographical regions.
The research analyzed 26,877 individuals from the INTERSTROKE study, representing 32 different countries across Europe, Asia, North and South America, the Middle East, and Africa.
The average age of participants was 62, and over 13,000 of them had a history of stroke. The remaining participants, who had not experienced a stroke, were selected to match the stroke group based on age, sex, and race or ethnicity, totaling over 13,000 individuals.
At the beginning of the trial, participants filled out questionnaires addressing cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure and diabetes.
In the year before the study, researchers asked people about their depression symptoms. Participants were asked whether they had experienced sadness, blueness, or depression for two or more weeks in a row throughout the course of the previous year.
In the research, 14% of individuals did not experience depression, compared to 18% of stroke survivors who did.
Those who had depressive symptoms before to having a stroke had a 46% higher chance of having a stroke than those who did not, even after accounting for age, sex, education, physical activity, and other lifestyle variables.
Participants’ risk of stroke increased as their symptom burden increased. Individuals with five or more depressive symptoms had a 54% greater risk of stroke than those who had none, while those with three to four depressive symptoms and those with one or two depressive symptoms had 58% and 35% higher risks, respectively.
Those with depressive symptoms were not more likely to have more severe strokes, but they were more likely to have worse outcomes one month following a stroke than those without depressive symptoms.
Murphy added that the study provided a more profound understanding of how depressive symptoms can heighten the risk of stroke. The findings revealed that while depressive symptoms have a negative impact on mental health, they also increase the likelihood of stroke. Therefore, physicians should be vigilant in identifying symptoms of depression and use this information to inform strategies for stroke prevention.
One of the study’s limitations was that the participants only completed questionnaires about their depressive symptoms at the beginning of the research. Therefore, the long-term impact of depression could not be evaluated.
Image Credit: Getty