Epidemiology

Mental Depression Linked To Mortality In Elderly Japanese

TOKYO, Apr 09 (Reuters) - Men with depression have higher death rates from cancer, pneumonia and suicide than those who are not depressed.

Dr. Motoi Nishi of the Hokkaido Tomakomai Health Center in Japan and
colleagues investigated the relationship between mental depression and death in 2,166 inhabitants between 60 and 74 years of age in the Hidaka district of Hokkaido Prefecture. From December 1990, through January 1991, researchers assessed the degree of depression of the subjects, using the self-rating depression scale (SDS) developed by Zung. Dr. Nishi's team grouped the subjects into three categories of depression and correlated depression scores with death rates during the following 4 years.

The severely depressed had the highest mortality rate, with cancer,
pneumonia and suicide as significant causes of death even after adjusting
for age, number of current diseases, smoking status and gender, Dr. Nishi
reports.

Overall, mental depression increased mortality of the aged, Dr. Nishi said.
This association might be explained on part by suppression of immunologic
resistance, he told Reuters Health.

Preliminary findings from the study are published in the December issue of the Journal of Epidemiology. The investigators will not reach definite
conclusions until about 2010, Dr. Nishi told Reuters Health. "We are
interested in the relation between the degree of depression and deaths
[from] various cancers, especially the one suggesting the causative role of
suppressed immunoresistance through mental depression," he commented.

As the percentage of elderly people in Japan increases, suicide-related
mortality in the age group older than 65 years is very high, Dr. Nishi told
Reuters Health. "In Japan, it is said that an old man who loses his wife
dies within 3 years, but an old woman who loses her husband gets more and more vigorous. The mental care for old males will be important in order to avoid suicide as well as various diseases deriving from mental depression,"
Dr. Nishi said.

J Epidemiol 1997;7:210-213.

by Sandra Katzman