The results of a new study confirm that people with diabetes are prone to depression. The findings also show that depression significantly increases the likelihood that people with Diabetes, but not those without diabetes, will die over a 10-year period.

“Depression should be considered a target for diabetes management,” Xuanping Zhang from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, told AMN Health.

“Physical health and mental health are interrelated and each impacts the other,” the researcher added, “and physical well-being cannot be improved if psychological problems have not been solved.”

Zhang and colleagues examined the relation between depressive symptoms and mortality among 558 diabetic and 7063 nondiabetic participants in a large U.S. study of a nationally representative group of people who were followed from 1982-1992.

A total of 276 diabetics and 1499 non-diabetics died during the study, the team reports in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The prevalence of depression was higher in the diabetic than in the non-diabetic group (26 percent vs 16 percent). After taking account of social, demographic, lifestyle, and health-status factors, the investigators found that diabetics with depression had a 54 percent greater mortality rate than those without depression.

There was no significant association between depression and mortality among the people without diabetes.

“If depressive symptoms persist over time, they will deteriorate diabetic patients’ physical health,” Zhang commented. Depression decreases the capacity for self-management, and for complying with diabetes care regimens.

“People need to pay more attention to the mental aspect when they deal with chronic diseases,” Zhang concluded.

SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, April 1, 2005.