Genetic perspectives on the comorbidity of anxiety and mood disorders with cardiovascular disease

Abstract

An increasing concern in healthcare is the co-occurrence of mental and somatic disorders in patients, illustrated most prominently by the comorbidity of anxiety and mood disorders (AMD) with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Here we show that this comorbidity is largely mediated by genetic and environmental effects on risk mechanisms from the biological, behavioral, psychological and social domains shared by AMD and CVD. Genetically informative designs support the causal effects of AMD on the risk of CVD but show no evidence of reverse causality. This aligns with meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials that support positive effects of AMD treatment on CVD but find no consistent effects in the opposite direction. We suggest that patients with both CVD and AMD would benefit from a collaborative care approach. Interventions should focus on modifiable shared risk factors for both conditions, with lifestyle improvement and stress management appearing most promising. de Geus et al. review the comorbidity between anxiety and mood disorders and cardiovascular disease through a genetic lens, discussing the interaction between genetic components and shared risk factors in disease associations.