Antidepressants and Heart Patients

[Angel]

Duke University Medical Center researchers report patients with coronary artery disease who take commonly used antidepressant drugs may be at significantly higher risk of death.

Lana Watkins, Ph.D., lead researcher of the study, says the finding adds further support for the potential role of non-pharmacological approaches for depression. Doctors often recommend alternatives to medicines such as exercise to reduce the risk of death in depressed heart patients.

For the study, heart patients were given the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), a commonly used depression screening test. Patients scoring 10 or higher on the BDI are considered depressed. Researchers found those patients not taking antidepressants had an average BDI score of 7, while those on antidepressants had an average score of 11.

"This finding that antidepressant use was an independent risk factor for mortality in patients with coronary artery disease was quite unexpected," Watkins says. "We were surprised since antidepressants, particularly the newer class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), have been generally considered safe. However, even after taking into account many patient variables, as well as the type of antidepressant, the risk still remained. So there is something important going on here that we don't fully understand."

Researchers say future studies are needed to uncover the reasons responsible for depression's negative effect on mortality.