Children and their families with type 1 diabetes are at an increased risk of developing mental health problems, a study has found.
Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for the majority of diabetes, is caused by insufficient insulin production or a loss in the ability of cells to utilize insulin, whereas in type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the beta cells of the pancreas, which makes insulin, resulting in very little or little insulin. It is a type of autoimmune disease caused by not being produced.
A research team led by Agnieska Boutvica, a professor of medical epidemiology and biostatistics at Karolinska University, Sweden, analyzed the association between type 1 diabetes and mental health in about 3.5 million people born in Sweden between 1973 and 2007. MedicalXpress reported on the 2nd.
Of these, about 20,000 were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in childhood and adolescence.
Children without type 1 diabetes were nearly twice as likely to develop depression and 1.6 times more likely to develop anxiety and stress-related disorders than children without type 1 diabetes, the researchers found.
Their parents and siblings were not as high as they were, but they were at a higher risk of anxiety disorders and stress-related disorders.
However, their half-siblings and fourth-degree cousins had no problems with mental health or had only a slightly higher risk of certain mental disorders.
This suggests that children with type 1 diabetes and their parents, as well as their closest immediate family, need to be looked at for mental health problems, the researchers said.
As parents, children, and real siblings carry more genetic material (about 50%) than half siblings (about 25%) or cousins (less than 12.5%), these results suggest that the gene is linked to the mental health problems of type 1 diabetes. The researchers explained that this suggests that there is a connection.
However, as these are only observational studies, it is difficult to establish a link between type 1 diabetes and mental health, the researchers emphasized.
Further research is needed to fully understand the genetic and environmental mechanisms by which type 1 diabetes promotes mental illness, the researchers added.
These mental health problems may interfere with the treatment of type 1 diabetes itself, the researchers noted.
The International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD) guidelines recommend mental health screening for children with type 1 diabetes.
However, there are no measures for families of type 1 diabetes patients.
Although most clinicians intuitively believe that type 1 diabetes negatively affects the mental health of patients and their families, the answer is not so simple, the researchers argued.
The results of this study were published in the latest issue of Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.
/yunhap news