Diabetes and Depression – The Surprising Connection
Friday, January 30th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
In the early stages of a disease, in most cases, the body will give subtle hints signaling that something may be not quite right with it. One of the early signs of diabets problems is a constant feeling of being tired and listless. You may find yourself easily becoming tired while doing tasks that formerly took you no effort whatsoever.
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.
Diabetes has many physical symptoms but it has a possible emotional one as well. Most people upon learning that they have a serious illness will go through one or more initial bouts of depression. But with diabetes, there seems to be some additional psychological and physical connection to depression. And, over the years researchers have documented a strong linkage between diabetes and depression.
A person diagnosed with diabetes increases the chance that he or she will develop depression by a hundred percent. There have been many peer group studies that show that. Even taking into account that the psychological stress of learning that someone has diabetes will account for a small amount of the depression, a two fold 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 such theory is that those suffering from depression are simply more likely to develop diabetes. According to this theory, there is some common metabolic disposition in the bodies of those with depression that puts them at risk for diabetes and vice versa. But there may also be a direct dietary cause. A depressed person, especially one not taking medication for his depression, is not caring for himself normally. He has more of a tendency to eat poorly, especially eating carbohydrate laden junk foods that have been demonstrated to increase blood sugar levels. A depressed person will also typically exercise less. In combination, these two factors can lead to obesity which, in turn, can lead to him developing type-2 diabetes.
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 crucial matter to keep in mind, however, is that many effective treatments exist for both diabetes and depression. Many doctors observe that when treating depressed patients with psychotherapy and/or medication, that their blood sugar levels are also improved. And, even though, its yet to be proven, it’s probably true that successfully treating diabetic patients will simultaneously help with their depression.
Hopefully, understanding that depression is a possible side effect of diabetes will help diabetics to better understand why they’re feeling the way they do and encourage them to seek help for their possible depression symptoms as well.
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