The Study
Association between Life's essential 8 and incident cardiovascular disease among individuals with depression: a prospective study.
This study found that people with depression who followed healthier habits (like eating better and exercising) tended to have fewer heart problems later. But it doesn’t prove that the healthy habits caused the lower risk — maybe other things, like income or access to doctors, made the difference.
Analysis score
Maximum 72 for a cohort study.
Where the score came from
People with depression who follow healthy habits like eating well, moving more, and controlling blood pressure have far fewer heart attacks and strokes.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 547 / 100
Quality score
Groups of people are followed over time to see who develops an outcome. Strong for identifying risk factors and associations, but cannot prove causation as firmly as RCTs.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes — cutting heart events in half by improving daily habits is a huge benefit for people with depression.
- 2Those with the healthiest habits had 68% fewer major heart events.
- 3Half of all heart events in this group were linked to poor habits.
- 4High blood pressure was the biggest problem.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
The Canadian journal of cardiology
Year
2024
Authors
Qiang Chen, Wanying Zhao, Qi Zhang, Siqi Li, Jiaqi Zhao, Wanlan Chen, Min Xia, Yan Liu
Related Content
Claims (4)
Eating healthy, nutritious food can help lower your chances of having heart problems like heart attacks or strokes.
If you have depression, having high or poorly controlled blood pressure is the biggest reason you might have a heart problem or stroke—and if you fixed your blood pressure, you could prevent the most of these issues.
In people with depression, about half of serious heart problems and nearly half of non-deadly heart issues could be linked to not following key heart-healthy habits over five years.
People with depression who follow heart-healthy habits like eating well, exercising, and not smoking have a much lower chance of having a heart attack or stroke—about two-thirds lower—than those who don’t follow these habits, based on a 12-year study.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.