In January 2010, two players for the New York Knicks came up with a very complicated excuse for their lousy play. After they lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder 106-88, Jared Jeffries and Eddy Curry claimed they were off their game because they were staying in a haunted hotel and had only gotten two hours of sleep.

Complications like a haunted hotel can put you off your game — of that there's no doubt. However, when it comes to medical problems, complications are far more real and threatening than apparitions.

These complications can make it much harder to treat any condition effectively. Just think how vision, nerve, gastrointestinal, and heart complications make it harder to manage diabetes.

A new study reveals how depression-associated complications can make it much harder to manage major depressive disorder, especially for the 10% to 30% of people who don't respond to anti-depressive medications.

Breakthrough research published in the journal Nature assessed risk factors between depression and 925 diseases. The researchers found that depression is a genetic cause of 20 potential comorbidities, including respiratory, heart, and digestive diseases such as asthma, coronary heart disease, high cholesterol, esophagitis, gastroenteritis, E. coli infections, and urinary system disorders.

According to the researchers from the Australian Centre for Precision Health, if you're diagnosed with depression, you should also be screened for these conditions — so that you can be treated, if needed.

That will lead to much better outcomes for managing depression, something that is desperately needed.