Study: Depression linked to reduced blood pressure control

DURHAM, N.H. (AP) _ A study co-authored by a Duke University researcher found that people who suffer from depression also have difficulty controlling changes in their blood pressure.

The study, which appears in the March issue of American Heart Journal, used 66 heart patients. It compared blood-pressure changes in 14 patients who scored lowest on commonly used tests for depression to 16 patients who scored highest on the tests.

Using a new technique, researchers were able to measure changes in heart rate and blood pressure between heartbeats.

The study found that those who scored high on the depression tests had a 30 percent reduction in their ability to control those changes.

The changes, called baroreflex sensitivity (BRS), occur when receptors along the walls of blood vessels alert nerves connected to the heart to pump faster or slower.

"In this way, the baroreflex system attempts to maintain an equilibrium which helps guard against sudden cardiac events," said Dr. Lana Watkins, Ph.D., of the Duke University Medical Center.

"The baroreceptors of depressed heart patients don't seem to have the same sensitivity to blood pressure changes."

Watkins' co-authored the study with Paul Grossman of the Lown Cardiovascular Center in Brookline, Mass., which funded the study.