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Mood
Disorders Tax Body Later in Life
(HealthScout)
-- While episodes of depression and other mood disorders may come
and go, the toll they take on your body may last forever, new
research shows.
Patients with
rheumatoid arthritis who had past episodes of serious affective
disorders, like major depression or generalized anxiety disorder,
had levels of fatigue that were up to 10 percent higher than other
patients, says a study in the current issue of the Annals of
Behavioral Medicine.
"There seems
to be a scar associated with a past history of an affective disorder,"
says lead study author, Judith Fifield, an associate professor
of family medicine at the University of Connecticut School of
Medicine. "People with a history of a major affective disorder
were at risk for a higher level of fatigue, even if it was as
much as 20 to 30 years in the past."
And the problem
isn't trivial, she adds.
As many as
25 percent of all women may develop depression in their lifetime,
the study claims, making it the most common affective disorder.
Some of the symptoms associated with depression are persistent
feelings of sadness, fatigue, hopelessness, insomnia and loss
of appetite.
For the study,
Fifield and her colleagues interviewed 415 rheumatoid arthritis
patients about their physical and emotional symptoms. The participants
were mostly female, had an average age of 58, and nearly two-thirds
were unemployed.
Rheumatoid
arthritis is an autoimmune disease that primarily affects the
joints, causing stiffness, pain, tenderness, and often debilitating
fatigue. It affects more than 2 million Americans, according to
the Arthritis Foundation, and the study says as many as 20 percent
of these patients are at risk for higher levels of fatigue.
Participants
in the study who also had a previous affective disorder reported
10 percent higher levels of fatigue than the other patients did.
And the level of fatigue remained higher throughout the seven
years the researchers examined, although the increases reported
by the affective disorder group were smaller each year.
Fifield says
they're not sure why people who experienced depression and anxiety
had higher levels of fatigue, though she suspects the disorders
may cause some change in the immune system. She also says those
who experienced affective disorders have endured more distress.
"The higher
the distress level," she says, "the greater the fatigue."
And, while
some studies have found a connection between chronic illness and
depression, Fifield says they found no evidence of that here.
She notes the incidence of major depression and general anxiety
disorder were right in line with the general population.
"This study
put into quantitative terms what we see in clinical practice,"
says Dr. Andreas Reimold, a rheumatologist and an assistant professor
of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
"People that have more depression have more difficulty coping
with painful illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis."
But, he adds,
the study is limited by the fact that the participants were self-reporting
subjective information.
And he says
while researchers know there is an overlap between psychological
and physical symptoms, we are still a long way from understanding
why.
Fifield hopes
early intervention for people with mood disorders might lower
levels of fatigue for rheumatoid arthritis patients later.
"People need
to really pay attention to the emotional well-being of patients
because emotions can have effects on the levels of pain and fatigue
they experience," she says.
For
more information on rheumatoid arthritis, read this article from
the
University of Washington or this one from
The Arthritis Society of Canada.
The
National
Institute of Mental Health and
PsychologyInfo.com both offer detailed articles on depression.
Reference
Source 101
For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick
Prevention Resources".
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