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CNN Live At Daybreak
Battling Depression
Aired June 18, 2003 - 06:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: In health news this morning, this week's "Journal of the American Medical Association" focuses entirely on depression and includes a landmark study. The study found that although millions of Americans suffer from depression, most are not getting adequate treatment.
Here to talk more about this is Dr. Sandra Fryhofer live from Chicago. Good morning.
DR. SANDRA FRYHOFER, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
And this study tells us that depression is a lot more common than people realize. This is a two-year nationwide study led by researchers at Harvard.
And let's take a look at the results. What they found was that 35 million Americans -- that's 16 percent of all adults -- will suffer from depression at sometime in their lifetime. And in any given year, 6 percent of adult Americans -- that's 13 million people -- will suffer from depression. So, it's much more common than what we thought.
They also were able to identify who was most at risk, and lifetime risk was greatest for women and for people previously married. In any given year, however, depression was most common in homemakers, people who never married, people who had not completed high school and people living in poverty.
So, the message here, Carol, is we've got to -- this is a common disorder. We've got to get rid of all of the stigmas and get people the treatment that they need.
COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about treatment, because we've said before that people are not getting adequate treatment. What needs to be done?
FRYHOFER: Well, what they found in this study is that only 1 in 5 people, only about 21 percent of people, are getting adequate treatment. And there are many reasons for this: people not taking enough -- high enough dose of medications, people stopping medications prematurely. And sometimes people were taking or using unproven sorts of therapies.
But understand that depression doesn't just affect the mind. It also affects the body as well, and patients with depression are more likely to have other conditions like stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis. And, in fact, patients with depression who have a heart attack are more than three times more likely to die after the heart attack as compared to people that don't have depression.
And companies need to be worried about this as well, another study in this same issue of the "Journal of the American Medical Association" -- I must tell you this one was funded by one of the drug companies that makes anti-depressants -- showed that -- they put a price tag of $44 billion on the costs of depression, and this would include time away from work, absenteeism, lost productivity. This doesn't even including the cost of treatment. So, companies need to be concerned about this as well.
COSTELLO: Understand. Dr. Sandra Fryhofer live from Chicago this morning. Many thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired June 18, 2003 - 06:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: In health news this morning, this week's "Journal of the American Medical Association" focuses entirely on depression and includes a landmark study. The study found that although millions of Americans suffer from depression, most are not getting adequate treatment.
Here to talk more about this is Dr. Sandra Fryhofer live from Chicago. Good morning.
DR. SANDRA FRYHOFER, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
And this study tells us that depression is a lot more common than people realize. This is a two-year nationwide study led by researchers at Harvard.
And let's take a look at the results. What they found was that 35 million Americans -- that's 16 percent of all adults -- will suffer from depression at sometime in their lifetime. And in any given year, 6 percent of adult Americans -- that's 13 million people -- will suffer from depression. So, it's much more common than what we thought.
They also were able to identify who was most at risk, and lifetime risk was greatest for women and for people previously married. In any given year, however, depression was most common in homemakers, people who never married, people who had not completed high school and people living in poverty.
So, the message here, Carol, is we've got to -- this is a common disorder. We've got to get rid of all of the stigmas and get people the treatment that they need.
COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about treatment, because we've said before that people are not getting adequate treatment. What needs to be done?
FRYHOFER: Well, what they found in this study is that only 1 in 5 people, only about 21 percent of people, are getting adequate treatment. And there are many reasons for this: people not taking enough -- high enough dose of medications, people stopping medications prematurely. And sometimes people were taking or using unproven sorts of therapies.
But understand that depression doesn't just affect the mind. It also affects the body as well, and patients with depression are more likely to have other conditions like stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis. And, in fact, patients with depression who have a heart attack are more than three times more likely to die after the heart attack as compared to people that don't have depression.
And companies need to be worried about this as well, another study in this same issue of the "Journal of the American Medical Association" -- I must tell you this one was funded by one of the drug companies that makes anti-depressants -- showed that -- they put a price tag of $44 billion on the costs of depression, and this would include time away from work, absenteeism, lost productivity. This doesn't even including the cost of treatment. So, companies need to be concerned about this as well.
COSTELLO: Understand. Dr. Sandra Fryhofer live from Chicago this morning. Many thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
