Do Depression and Anxiety Cause Cardiovascular Disease or Vice Versa?: Commentary on Huang et al.

In the current issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, Huang et al. investigate whether cardiovascular (CV) health at baseline is associated with incident anxiety and depressive disorders at follow-up (median 12.4 years later). They examine a large sample of participants (N > 115,000) from the UK Biobank dataset who were without CV disease or mental illness at baseline. The 8 predictors of CV disease labeled by the American Heart Association as Life's Essential 8 are used to create a CV health score at baseline. Huang and colleagues find that better CV health portends lower risk of incident depression and anxiety. The authors argue that improving cardiovascular health could reduce the mental health burden of anxiety and depression and that those individuals with lower cardiovascular health may benefit from more frequent mood disorder screening.