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Q: Relationship of Thyroid Disorder, Heart Disease and Bipolar Disorder
I have read that heart disease is associated with bi polar disorders.
every male member of my family history on my fathers side have died from heart
disease as far back as i could trace. and as i read more about heart disease and
bipolar i also found the common link of thyroid disorders.
my question is have you seen this relationship between thyroid disorder, heart
disease, and bipolar disorders, in real life? could it just be the thyroid
screwing everything up or does heart function and blood flow have more to do
with bipolar (i.e. the use of calcium blockers, and exercise being helpful for
bipolar)?
Dear Brian --
Part 1.
True: people with bipolar disorder have higher rates of heart attacks and other
cardiac problems than those who do not. However, there are many possible reasons
for this association. I am no expert in this area, but I don't think we have
quite reached the point where we can presume that bipolar disorder itself is the
cause of those higher rates.
For example, rates of cigarette smoking are also higher in patients with bipolar
disorder than in the general population. Obviously, that could account for part
of the increased cardiac risk. Similarly, rates of overweight and metabolic
syndrome and high blood pressure, all of which raise cardiac risk, are also
higher in people with bipolar disorder.Soreca
Moreover, depression has been strongly linked with heart disease risk, and
teasing out the difference between the risks from depression in bipolar disorder
from bipolar disorder itself will probably take a long time.
Part 2.
Now, to get to your question about "real life". For a psychiatrist in private
practice, it would be very difficult to assess the connection between mood
disorders and cardiac risk unless somehow we saw our patients falling over with
heart problems all the time, which I can assure you is not the case. The
connection with thyroid is similarly indirect: I don't see patients with obvious
thyroid problems that would make heart disease risk higher. Mind you, there is a
very interesting connection, I have tried to describe on a webpage on this
issue, between
thyroid and bipolar disorder. But to my knowledge there is no statistical
link between this combination and heart disease rates.
Dr. Phelps
Published March, 2008
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