Depression and Diabetes

New research reveals that those suffering from depression might be more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

The study, conducted by Pei-Chun Chen, Ph.D., of the National Taiwan University College of Public Health in Taipei, and colleagues, followed two groups: one consisting of an equal number of people with and without diabetes, and the other consisting of equal numbers of people with and without clinical depression.

The first group included 16,957 people with type 2 diabetes and the same number without as the

control subjects; the second group included 5,847 people with depression and the same number
without.

Subjects were selected through a random sampling of beneficiaries selected from National Health Insurance claims and were followed from 2000 to 2006.

According to the data collected, those with baseline depression were more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

The researchers found that in the first group, the incidence of depression was 7.03 per 1,000 for those with diabetes and 4.03 without. In the second group, the incidence of diabetes was 27.59 per 1,000 for those with depression, and 9.22 for those without.

“The two cohort studies provided evidence for the bidirectional relationship between diabetes and depression, with a stronger association noted for the depression predicting onset of diabetes,” the authors wrote in the study, which was released in November through the American Diabetes Association’s publication, Diabetes Care.

Previous studies appearing on the American Diabetes Association and WebMD websites have suggested that depression is more likely, perhaps twice as likely, among those with diabetes than among those in the general population.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *