Study sees major depression connection to diabetes

Elderly people who are depressed are more likely to become diabetic than those who are not, according to a study that suggests depression may play a role in causing the most common form of diabetes. Writing on Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers said people with a high number of symptoms of depression were about 60 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes, than people not considered depressed.

For 10 years, 4,681 men and women were screened annually for 10 symptoms of depression, including those related to mood, irritability, calorie intake, concentration and sleep. "People who report higher depressive symptoms may not take as good a care of themselves as they should," lead researcher Mercedes Carnethon of the Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine said in an interview. "For example, they may be less physically active, and thus more likely to gain weight, which is the primary risk factor for diabetes," Carnethon said. But the study statistically accounted for known lifestyle risk factors for diabetes like being overweight and sedentary, and still found that depression increased the risk of diabetes. Carnethon said a high level of the stress hormone cortisol in depressed people may be the reason. High cortisol levels, the researchers said, may cut insulin sensitivity and raise fat deposits around the waist.

Bonnie - depression is a neurological imbalance often triggered by diet and lifestyle (stress, in particular). Excessive inflammatory stressors create negative gene expression, leading to neurological imbalance (which includes excess cortisol production). Depression is a common symptom that can precede diabetes, so this study is not surprising.

In another recent study, patients with Type 2 Diabetes were found to be 83% more likely to develop Parkinson's disease later in life than people in the general population, according to Diabetes Care.

Do we see a vicious cycle forming here? Once diabetes takes hold, neurologic function that was depressed turns into chronic diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimers, the result of years of constant genetic inflammatory stress.

We must be kind to our kinases!