individuals experiencing a current episode of major depressive disorder (MDD) are significantly more likely to have insulin resistance (IR), new research shows.
Investigators found patients with MDD were 51% more likely to have IR compared with their counterparts without the depressive disorder. In addition, in individuals experiencing current depression, IR was also associated with depression severity and depression chronicity.
“We learned two things from this study — first, that insulin resistance was associated with being in a depressive episode and with the severity of that episode,” Kathleen Watson, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of psychiatry, Stanford University, California, told Medscape Medical News. “Second, we learned that we can estimate insulin resistance using a surrogate measure that is clinically accessible — the triglyceride/HDL ratio.”
