Diabetes and depression, a circular connection

Depression and diabetes run together often enough that researchers have long wondered if one might cause the other. There’s little doubt that living with a hazardous chronic condition like diabetes can put you on the road to depression. Research presented at the 2006 American Diabetes Association meeting may complete the circle. A study from Johns Hopkins suggests that certain hormonal changes that accompany depression may lead to diabetes. And a surprising analysis from a large diabetes prevention trial hints that the use of antidepressants is somehow linked to diabetes. That work is so new, and the connection is so surprising, that the benefits of taking antidepressants still far outweigh the supposed risk of diabetes.

Diabetes and depression are bad enough on their own. Both are also intertwined with heart disease. Being aware of the links is important. If you suffer from depression, ask your doctor to keep tabs on your blood sugar. If you have diabetes, or know someone who does, be on the lookout for signs of depression, since it can interfere with efforts to control blood sugar through eating well, exercising, and taking medications. Signs of depression include:

• a change in appetite that sometimes leads to weight loss or gain
• insomnia or (less often) oversleeping
• a slowdown in talking and performing tasks or, conversely, restlessness and an inability to sit still
• loss of energy or feeling tired much of the time
• problems concentrating or making decisions
• feelings of worthlessness or excessive, inappropriate guilt
• thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide plans or attempts.

When it comes to your heart, you can’t afford to act on dubious information. Now there’s a source of expert advice and authoritative heart research that comes to you directly from the more than 8,000 doctors and researchers at Harvard Medical School. The Harvard Heart Letter provides eight pages of monthly heart news for readers who may already suffer from heart disease and for people concerned about their risk who wish to take steps towards positive change.

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