Growing up watching TVB, I will remember the classic lines of Hong Kong dramas; "The most important thing to be a man is to be happy".
Yes, it is very important to be happy, life is only 30,000 days, and it is time to be happy every day.
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According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 3.8% of the population suffers from depression, including 5% of adults (4% of men and 6% of women), and 5.7% of adults over 60 years of age. Approximately 280 million people in the world suffer from depression. The incidence of depression is about 50% higher in women than in men. Worldwide, more than 10% of pregnant women and women who have just given birth suffer from depression. More than 700,000 people die by suicide every year. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among people aged 15-29 years.
Depressive disorder (also known as depression) is a common mental disorder that involves a prolonged period of low mood or loss of pleasure or interest in activities. Depression is different from normal mood changes and feelings about everyday life. Depression can affect all aspects of life, including relationships with family, friends, and community. Depression can be caused by problems at school and at work, or it can cause problems at school and at work.
Depression can happen to anyone. People who have experienced abuse, significant loss, or other stressful events are more likely to develop depression. Women are more likely to suffer from depression than men.
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Young women are generally considered to have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, but in March 2024, Professor Giovanni Civieri of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, published a new study finding that anxiety or depression may accelerate the development of cardiovascular risk factors in young and middle-aged women.
With the incidence of cardiovascular risk factors rising and heart attacks becoming more prevalent in young adults, the study has raised new concerns about the importance of cardiovascular screening and preventive care. Anxiety or depression (A/D) has also become more prevalent in recent years, with A/D increasing the risk of cardiovascular risk factors (CVDRF), with the greatest impact on the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in young women. Therefore, the researchers tested whether age/sex altered the association between A/D and CVDRF development, and whether this explained the difference in CVD risk. A/D, CVDRF (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus), and CVD events are defined using ICD codes.
The study showed that young women with anxiety or depression were nearly twice as likely as men to develop high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes over a 10-year period compared to women without these mental health issues, making them almost equal to men. The risk of heart disease is the same as that of people of the same age.
The researchers analyzed the health records of 71,214 people who participated in the Massachusetts General Brigham Biobank, a research project of the Massachusetts General Hospital Brigham Health System. During the 10-year follow-up period, 38% of participants developed hypertension, high cholesterol, and/or diabetes. According to the analysis, people with a history of anxiety or depression prior to the study were about 55% more likely to develop one or more risk factors than those without anxiety or depression. This finding was most pronounced in women under the age of 50 who suffered from anxiety or depression, who were almost twice as likely to develop cardiovascular risk factors as other groups.
To investigate the underlying drivers behind this relationship, the researchers examined the metabolic activity of stress-related brain regions in a subset of participants who underwent brain scans. The results showed that young women with anxiety or depression showed a relatively large increase in stress-related neural activity.
Young and middle-aged women are prone to mood swings, and are easily affected by the environment, external factors, and personal experiences, and in extreme cases, "broken heart syndrome" can occur.
An article first published in the New England Journal of Medicine in the United States by Hunter Champion et al. of Johns Hopkins University in the United States called some symptoms similar to heart disease, such as chest pain, breathlessness and shortness of breath caused by grief or shock, "broken heart syndrome", also known as Takotsubo syndrome (TTS) or stress cardiomyopathy (SCM), broken heart syndrome, Apical balloon syndrome, "Happy Heart Syndrome", etc., is a transient cardiac syndrome characterized by loss of movement at the apical of the left ventricle and increased basal contraction similar to acute coronary syndrome.
There is evidence that there is a strong interaction between the brain and the heart, which, during a few hours of extreme emotional or physical trauma, causes a brief (transient and non-permanent) "tremor" of the left ventricle (which is the part that pumps blood to the rest of the heart and the distal end of the body) and, as a result, the heart temporarily becomes "frozen" and unable to supply enough blood to the body. But this condition can usually be reversed quickly, and the ventricles usually return to normal within 14 days, and most patients recover without long-term damage to the heart. Broken heart syndrome can lead to severe, short-term heart failure with high morbidity and mortality. But the disease is usually treatable. Most people who experience the disease recover fully within a few weeks, and there is little risk of it happening again.
The most common signs and symptoms of broken heart syndrome are angina (chest pain) and shortness of breath, as well as pulmonary edema, hypotension, cardiac arrest, and heart failure.
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It's still that classic line; "The most important thing to be a man is to be happy". Life is good, and we should all be happy.
Reference:
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2. For younger women, mental health now may predict heart health later
3. Broken heart syndrome
4. Broken Heart Syndrome.
5. Broken Heart Syndrome.
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