Depression cited as the top cause of medical disability

Depression cited as the top cause of medical disability
The disease takes a toll, not just personally but economically, reports a U.S. mental health expert.
By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. April 2, 2007.

Thomas Insel, MD, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, attended the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in late January, where he caused a stir with a presentation on the high cost of depression.
He recently spoke with AMNews about his remarks.
Question: How big a burden is depression?
Answer: It's the leading source of nonfatal medical disability among people ages 15 to 44 in developed countries like the U.S. and Canada. It is the leading cause by far. Nothing else is even close. In the whole world it is the second or third greatest cause of disability. It costs the United States $53 billion annually in direct treatment costs, mortality and lost productivity.
Q: How are those figures arrived at?
A: You can calculate it in one of two ways: either as a source of disability for people in that age bracket, 15 to 44, or, the way the World Health Organization likes to do it, with a DALY, or disability-adjusted life years. That's the years lost to disability.
Q: It seems a surprisingly high figure.
A: Yes. It doesn't comport with what most of us would think about if we thought about the big killers: heart disease, cancer and stroke. Those are the three big killers, but they aren't the ones that cause the most disability. They cause mortality.[...]