Posted on: July 9, 2008
Down, With Diabetes
New study shows link between depression and type-2 diabetes
By Jessica Abels
CTW Features
It’s no news to researchers that type-2 diabetes often accompanies depression and vice versa – the question has always been which comes first.
The answer may have arrived in a new study conducted by Johns Hopkins University doctors, which suggests that either condition may initially develop, but then puts the patient at risk for the other.
“Having both diabetes and depression can make it difficult for patients to get the good clinical outcomes that we like to see for each of these conditions,” says Sherita Hill Golden, M.D., M.H.S., who led the study with her colleagues. “To make sure that patients with diabetes and depression receive the best care, we wanted to get to the bottom of the connection between these two conditions.”
Golden, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, says that having type-2 diabetes might worsen depression due to the rigorous treatment regimens the disease requires. An association between type-2 diabetes and depression was found in patients undergoing treatment for diabetes, but not in untreated patients, suggesting a link to stress caused by disease-management. On the flip side, depression may trigger behaviors that worsen or cause diabetes, such as smoking, overeating or not exercising.
“It’s important that doctors be attuned to look for both conditions in patients at risk for either diabetes or depression,” Golden says. “We may want to develop interventions for both treatments, instead of just one or the other.”
