MedWire News: Men, but not women, who are depressed face an increased risk of suffering a stroke, study results suggest.

Previous studies have shown that people who suffer strokes have an increased risk of depression, but it is not known whether depressed people have an increased risk of strokes, explain Dr Monique Breteler, from Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and colleagues.

To investigate, the team studied data on 4424 people who were aged at least 61 years in 1997 and had not previously suffered a stroke.

All the participants were assessed for depression at the start of the study and were monitored until 2005, during which time 291 suffered a stroke.

The researchers found that men who were depressed at the start of the study were 2.2 times more likely to suffer any type of stroke, and 3.2 times more likely to suffer a stroke caused by a blood vessel blockage than men without depression.

Interestingly, the risk of stroke was higher among men with depressive symptoms not severe enough for a diagnosis of depression than among those with a diagnosis of the condition.

However, women who were depressed at the start of the study were no more likely to suffer a stroke than their counterparts without depression.

Dr Breteler and team conclude: "Presence of depressive symptoms is an important risk factor for stroke in men, perhaps more so if depressive symptoms cannot be attributed to depressive disorder.

"Presence of depressive symptoms is not a risk factor for stroke in women."

The research appears in an advance online publication by the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.