Cor Vasa 2019, 61(3):e300-e304 | DOI: 10.33678/cor.2019.028

Depression, cardiovascular disease, and related pathophysiologic mechanisms in women

Tea Gegenava^a,b, Maka Gegenava^b,c

^a Leiden University Medical Center, Department of Cardiology, Leiden, Netherlands

^b Tbilisi State Medical University, Department of Internal Medicine, Tbilisi, Georgia

^c Leiden University Medical Center, Department of Rheumatology, Leiden, Netherlands

Background: Although depression is already elevated to the status of a risk factor for CVD in AHA and EACPR guidelines and recommendations, there is lack of gender specific information. Studies have proven that depression can be more prevalent in women at specific age and more significantly predisposes cardiovascular mortality compared to men. Purpose: The goal of our manuscript was to review current evidences suggesting prevalence of cardiovascular disease and depression in women, to find out the link between depression and cardiovascular disease in this particular population and determine plausible biological mechanism to account for this relationship.

Methods: We reviewed original manuscripts and meta-analysis published before Apr 20, 2019.

Results: Our review identified consistent association between depression and cardiovascular disease in women and predictive value of depression on cardiovascular mortality, also there are underlined some plausible pathophysiologic mechanisms responsible for this relation especially in women.

Conclusions: Women are more frequently experiencing lack of social support and social integration, as well as presence of depression leading to adverse CVD outcome and enhanced risk of cardiac death, early assess- ment of psychosocial risk factors even in low CVD risk female patients will be paramount to avoid future complication and define effective timing for cognitive-based intervention.

Keywords: Cardiovascular mortality in women, Depression

Received: April 26, 2019; Accepted: May 28, 2019; Published: June 21, 2019  Show citation