An intrinsic link between depression and Type 2 diabetes has been found per a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine according to CNN Health.
The study, which tracked 65,381 women between the ages of 50 and 75 for over 10 years, found that even after taking lifestyle factors like physical activity into account, women who were depressed were 17 percent more likely to develop diabetes than those who were not. Furthermore, women taking antidepressants had a 25 percent increased risk of diabetes.
Similarly, women with diabetes were 29 percent more likely to become depressed, while the risk for those taking insulin therapy shot up to 53 percent.
“We can say that the two conditions are linked to each other and are both the causes and the consequences of each other,” said Frank Hu, the study’s senior author and professor at Harvard School of Public Health, in an interview with CNN.
Both diabetes and depression are chronic illnesses that can be deadly if untreated, making life insurance important for anyone suffering from those diseases.
According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, here are the facts:
- 37.3 million people of all ages had diabetes (11.3% of the population) in 2019. 37.1 million were adults ages 18 years or older.
- 28.7 million people of all ages had been diagnosed with diabetes (8.7% of the population).
- 28.5 million were adults ages 18 years or older.
- 283,000 were children and adolescents younger than age 20, including 244,000 with type 1 diabetes.
- 8.5 million adults ages 18 years or older had diabetes but were undiagnosed (23% of adults with diabetes were undiagnosed).