Anxiety and depression elevate blood clot risk by 50%, says new study

Having anxiety or depression disorders could heighten the risk of a serious blood clotting condition by nearly 50 per cent, a new study has found.

Brain imaging showed that an increased stress-related activity in the brain, along with inflammation – because of the mental illnesses – were driving up the risk of deep vein thrombosis, in which a blood clot forms in a deep vein.

Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital, US, analysed their dataset of over 1.1 lakh participants to understand links between anxiety and depression, and the risk of deep vein thrombosis. A smaller group of 1,520 people underwent brain imaging.

Over a follow-up period of over three years, 1,781 participants (1.5 per cent) were found to develop the blood clotting condition.

The researchers found that while having either anxiety or depression disorder was associated with roughly a 50 per cent chance of developing deep vein thrombosis, having both the mental illnesses was associated with a 70 per cent chance of developing the clotting condition.

“The results, thus, identify anxiety disorders and depression as potent risk factors for deep vein thrombosis and identify modifiable mechanisms that mediate this association,” the authors wrote in the study published in the American Journal of Hematology.

The participants were typically aged 58 years and 57 per cent were women. Of the whole group, 44 per cent had a history of cancer.

However, adjusting for cancer – a risk factor for depression and blood clotting in veins – did not alter the results, the authors said.