Jia Z, Li S., et al. - Researchers analyzed 22,177 adults by pooling data from 2005– 2014 of a national health and nutritional examination survey to determine the potential role of risk factors common to depression and cardiovascular disease (CVD), like unhealthy lifestyles and chronic medical conditions, in modulating the link between these two disease conditions, given depression is linked with worse prognosis of CVD. They also investigated if the co-occurrence of depression with a specific common risk factor has a cumulative effect on CVD mortality. In participants who were suffering from depression, there was a protective impact of overweight against the risk of CVD death, but not in individuals without depression. In relative risk-based analyses, a mutually promotive impact of depression as well as baseline CVD or living alone on CVD mortality was suggested. These data may not only facilitate risk stratification in the clinical programs targeting CVD mortality, but also help reveal the differential pathophysiological mechanisms in the depression-mediated increase of CVD mortality.