Diabetes patients who have recovered from depression benefit from continued treatment
Patients with diabetes who recover from a bout of depression benefit from continued antidepressant treatment, a study shows (Archives of General
Psychiatry 2006;63:521).
US researchers studied 152 patients with diabetes who had recovered from
depression while being treated with sertraline. Patients were assigned
to continue taking sertraline or were given placebo and followed for
up to one year or until their depression recurred.
After one year, 65.8 per cent of patients continuing with antidepressant
therapy remained in remission compared with 47.9 per cent of those taking
placebo. The number of days before depression recurred in one-third of
the patients was 57 for patients receiving placebo compared with 226
for those taking sertraline. “Using data available at the one-year
point, the number needed to be treated was six patients, ie, it would
be necessary to treat six patients to spare one patient from depression
recurrence,” the researchers write.
They add that sustained remission was associated with improvements in
patients’ HbA1c levels, a secondary outcome of the study, and that
treatment with sertraline did not interfere with glycaemic control. The
researchers suggest that this is noteworthy because a previous study
showed a direct hyperglycaemic effect of nortriptyline.
“As a class, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors may have advantages
over tricyclic antidepressants by being relatively weight neutral,” the
researchers conclude. |
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