Treating diabetic depression

The was good news about diabetes in the major medical journals this week -- but not good enough.

Fifty years of improved treatments and better care mean that people with type 1, also called or insulin-dependent diabetes, are living longer, with less kidney failure and less nerve damage.

But in the journal Diabetes, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, who have been following 906 patients since 1950, said patients are still developing heart disease, eye damage and kidney dysfunction at about the same rate as they did in the 1950s.

Type 1 diabetics need more than tight glucose control

Treating diabetic depression

That may help to explain the finding by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, that people with diabetes have about a three-to-fourfold increase in the rate of depression compared with the general population.

Since people with diabetes are twice as likely to develop complications when they are suffering from depression, holding black moods at bay is an important part of diabetes management, and Zoloft (sertraline hydrochloride) looks like a good choice to achieve that goal, the researchers wrote in Archives of General Psychiatry.

In a study of 152 diabetics, Zoloft significantly prevented recurrence of depression compared to placebo.

•	Treating diabetic depression This week in the medical journals CNN.com, Thursday, May 4, 2006 Byline: Peggy Peck Managing Editor, MedPage Today