Advances in Psychiatric Treatment (2009) 15: 107-113. doi: 10.1192/apt.bp.107.004770
© 2009 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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Depression, cardiac mortality and all-cause mortality

Jeremy Seymour and Tony B. Benning

Jeremy Seymour is a Consultant in Old Age Psychiatry and is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield. His interests are in liaison old age psychiatry and in developing mental health services for older people, and he is a member of the Executive Committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Faculty of the Psychiatry of Old Age. Tony B. Benning is a Specialist Registrar in Psychiatry on the Sheffield and North Trent Higher Training Scheme and is currently based in Barnsley. He has completed higher specialist training in general adult psychiatry and liaison psychiatry. His special interests include clinical neuropsychiatry, liaison psychiatry and neurodevelopmental disorders such as Asperger syndrome.

Correspondence: Correspondence Dr Jeremy Seymour, Michael Carlisle Centre, Nether Edge Hospital, Osborne Road, Sheffield S11 9BF, UK. Email: jerry.seymour{at}sct.nhs.uk

Depression is an illness that kills. The links between depression and medical illness are well established and bi-directional, but evidence is mounting that depression increases mortality as well as morbidity in adults, particularly older adults. We examine the evidence that the increase in mortality in depression applies to all-cause mortality as well as cardiac mortality, and describe plausible physiological theories for the association. We conclude that excess mortality arising from depression is a major public health problem that is largely unrecognised and needs to be addressed by a range of clinicians.