Note: Co-authors Marlene Grenon and Beth Cohen receive career development support as CTSI K Scholars, and Jade Hiramoto is a former K Scholar.
By Jennifer O'Brien at UCSF.edu
Depression was linked with an increased risk of peripheral artery disease (PAD) in a study of more than 1,000 men and women with heart disease conducted by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco.
PAD is a circulatory problem in which narrowed arteries reduce blood flow to the limbs – usually the legs and feet – resulting in pain, reduced mobility and, in extreme cases, gangrene and amputation.
The study was published electronically on July 26 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Marlene Grenon, MD, CM, a vascular surgeon at SFVAMC and an assistant professor of Surgery at UCSF, led the analysis of data from 1,024 participants in the Heart and Soul Study, a prospective study of men and women with coronary artery disease who were followed for an average of approximately seven years.
“We discovered that there was an association between depression and PAD at baseline, and also found that the patients who were depressed at the beginning of the study had a higher likelihood of developing PAD during follow-up at seven years,” said Grenon.
“These findings add to the growing body of research showing the importance of depression in both the development and progression of PAD,” said senior author Beth Cohen, MD, MAS, a physician at SFVAMC and an assistant professor of medicine at UCSF. “This also emphasizes the need for medical providers to be attentive to the mental health of their patients who have developed, or who are at risk for, PAD.”
Read more at UCSF.edu