Affective Disorders and Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

In 1684, Thomas Willis wrote of diabetes mellitus (DM) that ``Sadness, or long sorrow, as likewise convulsions, and other depressions and disorders of the animal spirits are used to generate or foment this morbid disposition'' (Willis, 1684). An increased prevalence of depression among diabetics has been observed by Maudsley (1899); and Menninger (1935), Dunbar (1943) and Koranyi (1979) found DM occurred twice as frequently in a population of psychiatric patients as in the general population. However, as recently as 1983, there had not been a clear systematic study of the relationship between DM (insulin-dependent or non-insulin-dependent) and depression (Lustman, Amado, {\&} Wetzel, 1983; Wilkinson, 1981). Likewise, there have been suggestions of an increased association between DM and manic-depressive illness (Lilliker, 1980; van der Velde {\&} Gordon, 1969), although the evidence for this is controversial.