@article {992, title = {Depressive symptoms, inflammation, and ischemic stroke in older adults: a prospective analysis in the cardiovascular health study.}, journal = {J Am Geriatr Soc}, volume = {55}, year = {2007}, month = {2007 Nov}, pages = {1825-30}, abstract = {

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the mediator role of inflammation in any relationship between depressive symptoms and ischemic stroke.

DESIGN: Longitudinal prospective study.

SETTING: Review of medical records, death certificates, and the Medicare healthcare utilization database for hospitalizations.

PARTICIPANTS: Total of 5,525 elderly men and women aged 65 and older who were prospectively followed from 1989 to 2000 as participants in the Cardiovascular Health Study.

MEASUREMENTS: Depression symptom scores, inflammatory markers.

RESULTS: Greater depressive symptoms were associated with risk of ischemic stroke (unadjusted hazard ratio (HR)=1.32, 95\% confidence interval (CI)=1.09-1.59; HR=1.26, 95\% CI=1.03-1.54, adjusted for traditional risk factors). When a term for inflammation (C-reactive protein (CRP)) was introduced in the model, the HRs were not appreciably altered (unadjusted HR=1.31, 95\% CI=1.08-1.58; adjusted HR=1.25, 95\% CI=1.02-1.53), indicating that CRP at baseline was not a mediator in this relationship. In analyses stratified according to CRP levels, a J-shaped relationship between depressive symptoms and stroke was evident in the unadjusted analyses; in the fully adjusted model, only CRP in the highest tertile was associated with a higher risk for stroke in the presence of higher depressive symptoms scores.

CONCLUSION: The analyses from this prospective study provide evidence of a positive association between depressive symptoms and risk of incident stroke. Inflammation, as measured according to CRP at baseline, did not appear to mediate the relationship between depressive symptoms and stroke.

}, keywords = {Aged, C-Reactive Protein, Cardiovascular Diseases, Cerebral Infarction, Cohort Studies, Depression, Female, Geriatric Assessment, Humans, Inflammation, Kaplan-Meier Estimate, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Multivariate Analysis, Personality Assessment, Proportional Hazards Models, Prospective Studies, Psychoneuroimmunology, Risk Factors, Socioeconomic Factors, Statistics as Topic, United States}, issn = {1532-5415}, doi = {10.1111/j.1532-5415.2007.01393.x}, author = {Arbelaez, Jose J and Ariyo, Abraham A and Crum, Rosa M and Fried, Linda P and Ford, Daniel E} }