Hypothesis non-severe depression and diabetes related by low vitamin D – June 2011

Depression and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Call to Explore the Common Cause Hypothesis

Briana Mezuk, PhD, Department of Epidemiology and Community Health, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA ([email protected]).
Archives of Internal Medicine Vol. 171 No. 11, June 13, 2011

(Short item with just the first 150 words of the full text)

I read the recent article by Pan and colleagues1 with great interest. Their findings using the Short-Form 36 Health Status Survey suggest that even mood disturbances that do not require clinical intervention are predictive of diabetes. This interpretation, combined with the counterintuitive finding that nonsevere depression was similarly, and potentially more strongly, associated with diabetes risk than severe depression reported in another recent article,2 begs the question(s):

• What is it about depressed mood, regardless of severity, that predicts diabetes?
• Is there some omitted confounder that could explain this finding?

The "Patient Perspective" that accompanied the recent article by Campayo and colleagues2 hints at a potential candidate: stress.
The woman described in this vignette experienced both a major life event—widowhood—and complicated bereavement prior to onset of diabetes.
Stressful life events are a well-documented cause of depression.3 Recent work on the physiologic consequences of stress (canonized in concepts such . . .

See Also Vitamin D Life

• All items in category Depression and Vitamin D 215 items
• Overview Diabetes and vitamin D
• Depression 2X more common among diabetics, both associated with low vitamin D – 2014

Items in both categories Diabetes and Deproession are listed here: