Here’s what we know…
Insulin resistance is when the body does not respond correctly to insulin and cannot easily take up glucose from the blood and is already linked to causing type-2 diabetes. A new study shows that those who have insulin resistance have a higher chance of developing depression.
The study was taken over a 9 year period where researchers measured the insulin resistance in the participants and psychiatric evaluations over the time period. The study had a total of 601 participants who had no signs of depression or anxiety. The researchers also accounted for the age, sex, education level, level of physical activity, smoking status, and alcohol use.
The study showed that those who developed prediabetes during the first 2 years of the study were more than two times as likely to be experiencing major depression. Study author Dr. Katie Watson stated “It came as a bit of a surprise that being insulin resistant was linked to a significantly higher rate of depression during a 9-year follow-up period. We were not sure of the directionality of the relationship between the two health conditions. Now, it seems plausible that there is a bidirectional relationship between insulin resistance and depression; we have to do more research to figure that out.”
