Adults with mood disorders have an increased risk profile for cardiovascular disease within the first 2 years of treatment.
OBJECTIVE
People with bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are at risk for premature death from various physical illnesses. A large component of this risk may be accounted for by an elevated risk of metabolic syndrome (MeS) and coronary heart disease (CHD). The objective of our study was to examine patients' physical health prior to first treatment and over 2 years of follow-up.


METHODS
Ten-year risk for CHD and incidence of MeS were calculated for newly diagnosed patients with MDD (n = 30) and BD (n = 24) at baseline and over a 2-year follow-up. Age and sex-matched control subjects were obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III dataset.


RESULTS
At baseline, 11.2% of patients met diagnostic criteria for MeS and this increased to 16.8% at follow-up. Women had higher rates of MeS but rates were similar across diagnosis. There was a significant increase within all MeS criteria. The 10-year CHD risk was low for patients at baseline and follow-up but increased across the follow-up period. Changes in CHD and MeS risk were not associated with a specific type of pharmacotherapy, as all medication classes appeared to increase risk.


CONCLUSIONS
Prior to treatment, MeS and CHD risk rates for patients were similar to the general population, but their risk of CHD increased appreciably.
Taylor
Valerie
V
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. taylorv@mcmaster.ca <taylorv@mcmaster.ca>
McKinnon
Margaret C
MC
Macdonald
Kathryn
K
Jaswal
Gurpreet
G
Macqueen
Glenda M
GM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D017668:Age of Onset; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015897:Comorbidity; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D024821:Metabolic Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D055815:Young Adult