Many times we have heard prominent politicians or others refer to a decision made “with a heavy heart.”

Everyone experiences this kind of sadness.

It is part of life to suffer loss or setbacks resulting in the kind of emotional pain that feels, at that moment, it will never end.

It has long been known heart attacks can lead to depression and, in a 12-year study by Columbia University looking at more than 63,000 women, it has been established depression can, in fact, lead to heart disease.

Depression also worsens the outcomes of heart attacks or strokes.

When the study started, eight per cent of the women were found to be suffering from depression — a scary figure in its own right — but these women were more than twice as likely to experience sudden cardiac death and a much higher rate of death from other forms of heart disease.

An even bigger surprise was that sudden cardiac death was more closely linked with use of antidepressants than with depressive symptoms, but that does not mean medications were the cause.

This may be explained by the fact medicated patients were more depressed.

Other studies have shown antidepressant drugs may even add some protection to irregular heartbeats that may lead to sudden death.

The drug question aside, this study adds to growing evidence that depression is an independent risk factor for heart disease — on top of the classic risks of high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and smoking.

There are a lot of factors that indicate why depression increases risk of heart disease.

The more severe the reported depression symptoms, the more likely she was to have traditional heart risk factors.

Also, stresses like depression have been linked to such physical effects as a higher resting heart rate.

As we all know, depression can contribute to personal motivation — and many people do a terrible job taking care of themselves.

The American Heart Association recommended in 2008 that everyone who already has heart disease be regularly screened for depression — because depressed patients may skip their medications, sit indoors instead of exercising and eat poorly or too much.

Keeping all of this in mind, the antidote becomes clear: If you are sad or depressed, you have to do the things that feel very difficult at that time.

Force yourself to be physically active, control your calorie intake while eating nutritious foods, invest yourself in a project where the focus is on someone else and get yourself back in the game.

Nobody said it would be easy, but there are many ways for people to take charge of their life and minimize the symptoms and impacts of chronic diseases.

Thank you for reading Mental Health Matters.

You can learn more about the mind-body connection online at kamloops.cmha.bc.ca.

Click on the link for Bounce Back.

E-mail us at kamloops@cmha.bc.ca. if you have a story to share.