Is there a link between diabetes and depression?

If you have diabetes, you have an increased risk of developing depression and, if you have depression, you have a greater chance of developing type 2 diabetes. There is now evidence that the prevalence of depression together with diabetes is increasing.

It's almost normal for diabetics to be depressed, and the reasons spring both from our bodies and our minds. Let’s start with the body. Diabetes can interfere with serotonin levels in the brain, which in turn triggers depression. So diabetes can cause the blues in a physical, mechanical way.

But beyond simply having our bodies set up for depression, it also sucks to have diabetes. Diabetes requires constant attention, it affects what we can eat, how me need to move. There is testing, and medications, and worries about complications, and…

So yeah. We d-folks are at much greater risk of depression than people who don’t have diabetes. Some estimates place the rate of depression amongst diabetics as high as 50%.

I think that this is one of those things that you just have to accept goes hand-in-hand with having diabetes. You need to first recognize the fact, and then accept it. If you are depressed you need to treat it, just the same as you need to treat your blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol.

There are a variety of anti-depressants, and you should not be ashamed to take one. It is simply part and parcel of the treatment of diabetes.

So if you are depressed, bummed, blue, out-of-sorts, talk to your doctor about whether an anti-depressant is right for you.