Diabetes Treatment Ups Depression Risk

(Ivanhoe Newswire) The treatment used to help people with type 2 diabetes may cause some patients to develop depression.

Johns Hopkins researchers arrived at that conclusion after studying the link between depression and diabetes in two studies.

The first analysis involved about 5,200 people without type 2 diabetes at the beginning of the study. People who developed diabetes and received treatment had a 52 percent higher risk for depression. People who developed diabetes but did not receive treatment did not have a higher risk for depression.

The second analysis was conducted among about 4,800 people without depression at the start of the research. While more people who developed depression also developed diabetes during the follow up, the association was not statistically significant after lifestyle factors were taken into account. The investigators speculate depression itself is associated with lifestyle factors such as obesity, which also put people at increased risk for diabetes.

Future studies should determine whether interventions aimed at modifying behavioral factors associated with depression will complement current type 2 diabetes prevention strategies, write the authors. They also believe their findings suggest that clinicians should be aware of increased risk of elevated depressive symptoms in individuals with treated type 2 diabetes and consider routine screening for depressive symptoms among these patients.

SOURCE: JAMA, published online June 18, 2008

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