Antidepressants may reduce deaths – by more than a third – among people diagnosed with diabetes and depression, a population-based study has found.
Investigators tracked more than 53,000 diabetes patients from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan from 2000 to 2013. Antidepressant use was linked with 35% reduced mortality overall for all medications studied with the exception of one drug type: reversible inhibitor of monoamine oxidase A.
The results suggest that diabetes patients shouldn’t brush aside mental health concerns, the researchers report. In fact, diabetes patients are two-to-three times more likely to have depression than are people without diabetes. But up to three quarters of those with both illnesses remain undiagnosed, even though effective treatment is available, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Diabetes and depression each contribute to increased total mortality, said the study’s corresponding author, Vincent Chin-Hung Chen, M.D., Ph.D., in a statement. “This data provides further rationale for the screening and treating of depression in persons who have diabetes,” he concluded.
The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
