Depression is Bad for Coronary Heart Disease: Is Continued Cigarette Smoking a Factor?

Depression has been repeatedly associated with poorer outcomes in coronary heart disease (CHD), but the mechanisms linking these phenomena are unclear, especially because of several possibly confounding factors: smokers have higher rates of depressive symptoms than nonsmokers; smokers with depression often have more difficulty quitting cigarettes than nondepressed smokers; and depressed people have a heightened risk for relapse of depression within 2 years of quitting smoking. To investigate …