The Surprising Link Between Diabetes and Depression
Among the earliest signs of diabets mellitus is a continuous sensation of feeling fatigued and listless. You may find that you easily become fatigued while doing tasks that used to take no effort whatsoever. In the early stages of a disease, in most cases, the body will give subtle hints like this signaling that something may be not quite right with it.
But even if you see your doctor because you suspect something is wrong, it can still be a shock to be told by your doctor that you have diabetes. You may go through a stage of denial and a stage of anger, but eventually you will come to acceptance of the fact that you do have diabetes.
In addition to its many physical symptoms, diabetes has some possible emotional one as well. Many people upon finding out that they have a grave illness will go through one or more preliminary bouts of depression. But with diabetes, there seems to be some additional psychological and physical link to depression. And, over the years researchers have documented a strong link between diabetes and depression.
There have been many peer group studies that show a person diagnosed with diabetes increases his or her risk of depression by 100 percent. Even taking into account that the psychological stress of learning that someone has diabetes will account for a small amount of the depression, a 100 percent increase is a huge number.
To date, there have been no studies that identify exactly why there should be a link between diabetes and depression, but there are a couple of theories that may provide us with a clue.
One theory is simply that people with depression are more likely to develop diabetes. In other words, there is some common metabolic tendency in the bodies of people with depression that puts them at risk for diabetes and vice versa. But there may be a direct dietary causal reason as well. A depressed person, especially one not taking medication for his depression, is not taking care of himself normally. He has a tendency to eat more poorly, especially carbohydrate laden junk foods that have been shown to increase blood sugar levels. A depressed person will also typically exercise less. In combination, these two factors can lead to obesity which can lead to him being diagnosed as a type-2 diabetic.
Another theory is that diabetes itself is the trigger. Studies have shown that diabetes causes the body’s glucose levels to wildly vary. Depression researchers also know that depression is directly related to poor and erratic blood sugar control. With this connection, it would be no surprise that a high number of diabetes sufferers could also experience depression.
The important thing to remember, however, is that there are effective treatments available for both diabetes and depression. Many doctors notice that when treating depressed patients with psychotherapy and/or medication, that their blood glucose levels are improved also. Although, yet to be proven, it’s probably true that successfully treating diabetic patients will simultaneously help with their depression.
Hopefully, realizing that depression is a possible side effect of diabetes will help diabetics to understand better why they are feeling the way they do and encourage them to seek out aid for their possible symptoms of depression as well.