Poor mental health raises risk of incident T2D

People with worse overall psychological wellbeing are at significantly higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D) in a dose‒response manner irrespective of their genetic predisposition, suggest the results of a recent study.

A team of investigators conducted this prospective cohort study using the UK Biobank to explore the relationship between combined psychological wellbeing factors and T2D, as well as to determine whether genetic predisposition modified such association.

A total of 127,496 participants who completed a psychological wellbeing questionnaire and did not have T2D at baseline (2006‒2010) were enrolled in the study. Of these, 88,584 (69.5 percent) were included in the analysis that determined their genetic predisposition. Incident T2D was the primary outcome.

Documented T2D cases totaled 2,547 during a median follow-up of 10.0 years. The risk of diabetes was markedly increased in participants with moderate to extreme unhappiness, satisfaction score ≤3, presence of broad depression, or a neuroticism score ≥3.

Considering psychological wellbeing as a combination indicator, the fully adjusted hazard ratios of T2D were 1.41 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.21‒1.65) among individuals in the third quartile of psychological wellbeing score, 1.45 (95 percent CI, 1.24‒1.69) in the second quartile, and 1.73 (95 percent CI, 1.48‒2.01) in the lowest quartile compared with those in the highest quartile.

Stratified analysis revealed significant interactions of age (p_interaction<0.001) and physical activity (p_interaction=0.049) with T2D, but no significant association existed between the psychological wellbeing score and genetic susceptibility to diabetes (p_interaction=0.980).