Diabetes and depression can make deadly combo
Living with diabetes and depression can increase your risk of death, according to a recent evidence review in General Hospital Psychiatry.
About 42,000 patients with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes were studied in the review. In four studies, co-morbid depression correlated to a 20 percent higher risk of cardiovascular-related death for people with diabetes. In general, depression was linked to a 1.5-fold increase of death.
"Depression consistently increased the risk of mortality across virtually all studies," said Mijung Park, PhD, lead author and assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing.
A downward spiral?
Health experts like Dr. Todd Brown, associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, say it's not unlikely for someone with both depression and diabetes to allow both conditions to influence the other: depression can lead to poor health habits, and managing diabetes and its complications can lead to decreased quality of life and, as a result, depression.
"Obesity can lead to worsening metabolic status that can lead to hopelessness and decreased physical activity, which in turns worsens obesity, and the cycle continues," Brown said.
Treat depression and diabetes at the same time
Park notes that since depression is a highly treatable condition, addressing it should go hand-in-hand when a patient is receiving care for diabetes.
"We can now postulate that the harmful effect of depression is universal to individuals with diabetes," she said.
Source: Science Daily
Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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