Diabetic children with poor blood sugar control and frequent emergency room visits might be suffering from depression. Researchers from the Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena studied involved 2672 individuals, between 10 and 21 years of age, who had diabetes for an average duration of 5 years. Most had insulin dependant or type 1 diabetes, in which insulin-producing cells are knocked out by a faulty immune reaction, but 371 had type 2 diabetes, which is usually related to obesity and results from the body's inability to use insulin properly. The researchers found that 14 percent of the subjects had a mildly depressed mood and nearly 9 percent had a moderately or severely depressed mood. On an average, females were more depressed than males. As mentioned, poorer diabetes control and more frequent emergency visits were both associated with depressed mood. In male subjects, type 2 diabetes was more closely linked to depressed mood than type 1 diabetes. In females, the presence of other illnesses was predictive of depression. Based on this study, pediatricians or child specialists might want to consider screening for depressed mood in young diabetic patients having trouble keeping their blood sugar under control.
Pediatrics,
April 2006