Hearts and minds: treating depression in cardiac disease

Abstract

Hardly a week goes by that I don't find myself reading about the “mind-body connection” in a non-medical publication. The article is typically focused on some common physical disease (diabetes, arthritis, whatever) that, to the reporter's putative amazement, has just been shown to be affected by psychological or psychiatric factors. If you're a regular reader of the Update, I doubt you'll find such reports surprising. Indeed, when I talk with healthcare providers across specialties, I rarely encounter skepticism about this “connection” — a change, to be clear, from my early days in medicine, when “supratentorial” factors were often noted with borderline derision.