Depressed People Over Age 65 May Develop Type 2 Diabetes More Readily, Study Finds

Filed under: In The News — @ April 29, 2007

Older adults who are depressed could be more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, according to a new study, Reuters reports.

The study, published in the Archives on Internal Medicine, evaluated nearly 5,000 adults aged 65 or older for a decade and found that those who got the blues were more likely to develop diabetes than those without depressive symptoms, according to Dr. Mercedes Carnethon of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.

These findings are “of particular public health importance because there are 35 million U.S. adults older than 65 years,” maintained Dr. Carnethon and her research colleagues . Of that figure, about 2 million of these older adults experience depression. And of those, 15.3 percent have diabetes, the researchers point out.

Find out more on this new research here.