Friday, August 12, 2011

Depressed women face higher risk of stroke

Remember correlation is not the same as causation. And the suggestion that treated depression is still a risk factor for stroke may be a further basis to suggest that depression and stroke go together rather than cause each other. Nevertheless, stroke is a major cause of death among women and this is important work:

http://bit.ly/pzZ2PA

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe it is. However, women generally enjoy better health then men; they live much longer too.


I wonder if there is a statistical anomoly with these types of findings. We hear these kinds of stories all the time.

Obviously, we all must die and presumably there is always a cause. Since life expectancy has risen so dramatically over the last century it must be the case that certain types of death have skyrocketed. They would include strokes,heart attacks, and perhaps even cancer etc.

Less common today are deaths by food poisoning, tuberculosis etc. etc. With all of these other things largely eliminated then deaths from other causes rises.

Suppose there was a magic pill that derpressed women could take that would mean there was no greater risk of them dying by stroke than any other woman. What would they die of? Heart failure? suicide (I believe there is a strong link between suicide and depression)? Would a spike in these stats (probably negligible)concern experts?

The focus on these stats I'd argue might be counter-productive.

The reason death by stroke in women are so high is that they live so long...

James C Morton said...

That last point makes a lot of sense.