Elderly women with mild depression tend to live longer than those without depression. Mild depression may actually protect elderly women from premature death as reported recently by scientists.

Researchers at the Duke University Medical Centre in Durham studied 3670 men and women ages 65 and older who were interviewed every three years from 1986 to 1997. The interview subjects represented a random sample of the local population. Some participants were married, some widowed and some divorced. Some lived alone while others lived with their families. During the interviews, researchers screened the subjects for depressive symptoms to determine if they met the criteria for mild depression, meaning symptoms such as occasional sleeping problems or feeling blue but not severe enough to require treatment. The mortality rates in the study group were studied.

Mild depression was detected in about 10% of the 2401 women and in 8% of the 1269 men at the beginning of the study. Women with mild depression were less likely to die over the three-year periods studied than those with no depression or those with more serious depressive symptoms. The study revealed that women exhibiting symptoms of mild depression died at a rate only 60 percent of that of women of the same age showing either no signs of depression or suffering more severe depression, according to the findings. Varying levels of depression seemed to have no effects on the mortality of the study's male subjects.

The problem with depression in the elderly is that sometimes people become depressed by the regressive health problems that accompany old age and sometimes depression itself can contribute to these ailments. Depression has many harmful effects on physical health, from heart disease to suppressing the immune system. However, it is possible that mild depression, which typically does not require medical treatment, could be a coping mechanism for elderly women that might benefit them in the long run. However, people with more severe depression do need to be treated.

American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry May 2002, Vol. 10(2)