Sertraline Treatment of Major Depression in Patients With Acute MI or Unstable Angina

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Abstract
Although a connection between mood and the heart has been a part of language and literature from antiquity, for some time scientific verification was lacking. In the mid 1970s, epidemiologists began to report consistent associations between depression and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Initial studies were open to criticism,1 but in the last decade many large-scale, well-controlled studies, in which initially healthy subjects were followed up prospectively, have identified depression as a significant independent risk factor for both first myocardial infarction (MI) and cardiovascular mortality, with an adjusted relative risk in the range of 1.5 to 2.2-9 Similarly, among individuals with established ischemic heart disease, depression has been found to be associated with an approximately 3- to 4-fold increase in the risk of subsequent cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.10-16