From: AK Bhattacharyya <ajitkbhattacharyya@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [IHRO] Re : Depression more damaging than some chronic illnesses
To: IHRO@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, September 9, 2007, 6:29 PM
Sure.Main reason for suicide is depression and many
other drastic behaviour.
Observer in real life
— Adsm <andym1997@yahoo. com> wrote:
> Depression more damaging than some chronic illnesses
>
> By Michael KahnFri Sep 7, 1:53 PM ET AP
>
>
>
> Depression is more damaging to everyday health
> than chronic diseases such as angina, arthritis,
> asthma and diabetes, researchers said on Friday.
> And if people are ill with other conditions,
> depression makes them worse, the researchers found.
> “We report the largest population-based worldwide
> study to our knowledge that explores the effect of
> depression in comparison with four other chronic
> diseases on health state,” the researchers wrote in
> the Lancet medical journal.
> Somnath Chatterji of the World Health
> Organisation, who led the study, said researchers
> calculated the impact of different conditions by
> asking people questions about their capacities to
> function in everyday situations — such as moving
> around, seeing things at a distance and remembering
> information.
> The researchers assigned a number between 0 and
> 100 reflecting a person’s relative health score.
> “Our main findings show that depression impairs
> health state to a substantially greater degree than
> the other diseases,” the researchers wrote.
> The team used World Health Organisation data
> collected from 60 countries and more than 240,000
> people to show on average between 9 percent and 23
> percent had depression in addition to one or more of
> four other chronic diseases — asthma, angina,
> arthritis and diabetes.
> The most disabling combination was diabetes and
> depression, the researchers said.
> “If you live for one year with diabetes and
> depression together you are living the equivalent of
> 60 percent of full health,” Chatterji said in a
> telephone interview.
> The findings show the need to provide better
> treatment for depression because it has such a big
> impact on people with chronic illnesses, Chatterji
> added.
> “What tends to happen is a health provider doesn’t
> look for anything else but the chronic illness,” he
> said.
> “What we are saying is, these people will also be
> depressed and if you don’t manage the depression you
> can’t improve a person’s health because depression
> is actually worsening it.”
>
>
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>
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