Diabetics, get treatment for depression!
Scientists have uncovered an unusual link between diabetes and antidepressants
Diabetics taking antidepressants, on average, die prematurely a third less often than other carriers of this disease. This conclusion was reached by doctors who published an article in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
"The incidence of depression among diabetics is much higher than the average for the entire population. Both in themselves increase the mortality rate. Our measurements show that we should purposefully look for those diabetics who suffer from chronic depression and help them get rid of it," said Vincent Chen from Changgong University in China (in a press release Endocrine Society Antidepressants reduce deaths by more than a third in patients with diabetes).
According to WHO statistics, there are 347 million patients with diabetes mellitus in the world, and approximately every 9 out of 10 diabetics suffer from type 2 diabetes resulting from an increase in the body's immunity to insulin. 80% of diabetics live in low- and middle-income countries. By 2030, diabetes will become the seventh cause of death worldwide.
In addition to high blood sugar levels, which have an extremely negative effect on the condition of the eyes, muscles and many other organs, diabetes has other side effects. For example, scientists have recently discovered that the acquisition of insulin deficiency often leads to the development of male infertility, and all diabetics are about 2-3 times more likely to suffer from depression than other categories of citizens.
On the other hand, depression, as doctors and sociologists have long known, significantly increases the chances of premature death at any age. Chen and his colleagues decided to test how the development of depression affects the mortality rate among diabetics.
To do this, they analyzed the data collected by the medical services of Taiwan over the past 19 years, and isolated from them the medical histories of about 53 thousand diabetics who simultaneously suffered from chronic depressed mood.
Scientists calculated the average mortality rate among these people and compared it with how often other diabetics who took antidepressants on the advice of doctors died, as well as with the probability of death of healthy people.
As it turned out, the difference was really very significant – diabetic patients who took antidepressants died about 35% less often than the rest of the residents of Taiwan who suffered from this disease.
Interestingly, these beneficial effects were characteristic not only for the reason that getting rid of depression protected diabetics from acquiring bad habits or switching to fast food and other dangerous types of food. Even when scientists removed all such causes of death from the analysis, antidepressants still reduced the chances of premature death.
Such results, as scientists emphasize, indicate the special importance of combating depression, and the need to find such methods of its suppression among diabetics that would reduce these risks or completely eliminate them.
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