Depression can double the risk for suffering a heart attack or stroke, according to a new study of African Americans with major depressive symptoms.

The findings, published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation: Quality and Outcomes, raise new concerns about the links between mental and physical health.

For the study, researchers screened 3,309 in Jackson, Miss., patients, ages 21 to 94, for depression then tracked how many suffered strokes or heart disease over a 10-year period. The findings showed:

•    Patients with depressive symptoms had a greater risk of stroke than those without symptoms.
•    Depression sufferers were nearly twice as likely to suffer coronary heart disease (5.6 percent) compared with those without depressive symptoms (3.6 percent).
•    Depressed patients also suffered from more chronic conditions, exercised less, garnered lower wages, and were more likely to be women, smokers, and overweight.

"African Americans have higher rates of severe depression yet lower rates of treatment compared with white populations," said Emily O'Brien, lead researcher and medical instructor at the Clinical Research Institute at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

"We need better communication between providers and patients to support early screening and shared-decision making to reduce the rate of depression in this population."