Depression is known to raise a person's risk of dying from a heart attack, but exactly why has so far eluded researchers.
Now, a new study has found that depressed patients have worse heart function after a heart attack, which could be the source of their increased risk of death.
The autonomic nervous system helps to control blood pressure, the heart's rhythm and its ability to contract. These functions are known collectively as heart rate variability (HRV) and reflect the organ's ability to handle stress or exertion. People with poor HRV are more likely to die after having a heart attack.
And past research has linked clinical depression with abnormalities in autonomic nervous system function, including an elevated amount of stress hormones in the blood.
The study supports the concept that altered cardiac autonomic nervous system activity could explain the effects of depression on mortality in patients with heart disease.
According to the report, major depression can quadruple a person's risk of dying within 6 months after a heart attack. The new findings suggest that treating depression medically or with psychotherapy may help prolong the lives of some patients following a heart attack.
Circulation October 23, 2001;104
Readers of this newsletter will know that I am quite fond of promoting the eating plan to treat just about any medical problem. Following the eating plan will decrease the risk of depression if not eliminate it in many people. Sunlight is also a major factor and is one of the reasons why heart attacks peak in winter.
However, there are clearly a large number of individuals who eat perfect diets and have huge problems with depression and other emotional illnesses.
I am convinced that emotional wounding, not diet or exercise, is the major reason why most people get chronic illnesses such as heart attacks and cancer. This study provides a wonderful mechanism as to how that might actually occur.
This is one of the reasons why I have been so delighted to be able to teach some of these incredibly powerful tools to my patients. I have been using bioenergetic medicine since this summer with a high degree of success to address these emotional traumas.
There are many effective techniques out there, but I am currently using EFT and will actually have videos available from a course I will shortly teach where one can actually learn these techniques.