Days of so-called mainstream medical research being in one part of the academic center and psychiatry over in the corner doing what seemed like idiosyncratic work separated from the rest of medical research, are gone. Also noteworthy is increasing recognition of the interaction of psychiatric illness and non-psychiatric illness in modern research. Of particular interest is the relationship between depressive disorders and heart disease. It has been shown that an individual with coronary disease, if affected simultaneously by a depression, is at greater risk. The only other condition accompanying coronary disease which carries a level of comparable seriousness for prognosis is co-existing heart failure.
Depression occurs in conjunction with a whole host of diseases.
For example, it is noteworthy that depression appears more prominently in certain brain locations for stroke. But the far reaching impact of psychiatric illness has been illustrated further. The World Health Organization has classified the illnesses which will create the most impact over the next several decades, and five of them are psychiatric disorders. Depression is the second leading cause of morbidity due to illness and illness impact. Now if that is not enough to demonstrate that psychiatric disorders are mainstream, leaders such as Roman DeSanctis note that people with depression have a greater risk of heart disease and also of related death.