• Posted May 21, 2025

Battling Multiple Chronic Illnesses Can Double Risk Of Depression

Battling chronic disease really takes it out of a person, leaving them vulnerable to depression.

And people with multiple long-term health problems are even more likely to fall prey to depression, a new study says.

Some combinations of illnesses can more than double the likelihood a person will eventually be diagnosed with depression, researchers reported this month in the journal Nature Communications Medicine.

“Healthcare often treats physical and mental health as completely different things, but this study shows that we need to get better at anticipating and managing depression in people with physical illness,” co-researcher Bruce Guthrie, a professor of general practice at the University of Edinburgh in the U.K., said in a news release.

For the study, researchers tracked more than 142,000 participants in the ongoing U.K. Biobank study who had at least one chronic health problem but no history of depression. The people ranged in age from 37 to 73.

Researchers found that those with the highest rates of physical illnesses had a 2.4 times higher risk of depression, the highest found in the study. These patients had on average more than four chronic health problems.

Depression risk was doubled in people suffering from migraine disorders or chronic lung problems, while heart disease combined with diabetes increased risk by 78%, results show.

Digestive conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), celiac disease and liver disease also increased risk of depression 83% in women and double in men, researchers found.

“Almost all physical morbidity clusters are associated with higher risk of subsequent depression than the group with no physical conditions at baseline,” researchers wrote.

Overall, about 1 in 12 people in the highest-risk groups developed depression over the next 10 years, compared with about 1 in 25 people without physical conditions, researchers found.

“We saw clear associations between physical health conditions and the development of depression, but this study is only the beginning,” lead researcher Lauren DeLong, a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh, said in a news release. “We hope our findings inspire other researchers to investigate and untangle the links between physical and mental health conditions.”

More information

The Mayo Clinic has more about depression.

SOURCES: University of Edinburgh, news release, May 13, 2025; Nature Communications Medicine, May 13, 2025