Is there an association between depressive symptoms, insulin resistance, and the risk of diabetes in women at midlife?
The authors address comments on their study, noting that baseline overt diabetes was excluded, making it unlikely that insulin resistance causing depression explains their findings.
Pouwer and de Jonge (1) raise two interesting points regarding our findings on depressive symptoms, insulin resistance, and diabetes risk (2). First, they suggest that insulin resistance may increase the risk for depression. This may be a plausible hypothesis, but it is an unlikely explanation for our findings. Participants were excluded from our analyses if they had overt diabetes (fasting blood glucose of ≥126 mg/dl or a self-reported history of diabetes) at the baseline examination. …
Everson‐Rose et al. (Sun,) studied this question.