While depression is a minor risk factor for stroke compared to hypertension and other blood vessel-related ailments, it accounts for as much as 4 percent of the annual number of strokes in the United States, according to recent research.

The analysis, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, also found that depressed people are more likely to have a stroke than people who are not suffering from depression, and those strokes are more likely to be fatal, a story on CNN.com reports.

"We knew that depression raises a person's risk of developing diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease," says An Pan, lead author of the analysis and a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. "We also knew that depression can occur after patients suffer a stroke. We just didn't have strong enough evidence to know if the reverse was true, or what really comes first."

To read the complete CNN.com story, Go Here.