The association between type 2 diabetes and major depression in apnoeic individuals

Given the few studies available in the literature, the aim of this study was to investigate the association between type 2 diabetes and major depression in a large sample of apnoeic individuals. Demographic and polysomnographic data from 395 apnoeic individuals recruited from the clinical database of the Erasme Hospital Sleep Laboratory were analysed. Only individuals with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes according to the diagnostic criteria of the American Diabetes Association at admission were included in the “diabetes” group. Logistic regression analyses were used to study the association between type 2 diabetes and major depression in apnoeic individuals. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes was 19.7% in our sample of apnoeic individuals. After adjusting for major confounding factors, multivariate logistic regression analyses demonstrated that unlike remitted major depression and mild major depression, only moderate to severe major depression was significantly associated with higher likelihood of type 2 diabetes in apnoeic individuals. In our study, we found that moderate to severe major depression is significantly associated with type 2 diabetes in apnoeic individuals, which seems to justify more systematic screening and adequate therapeutic management of this psychiatric disorder to allow better glycaemic control in this subpopulation at high risk of diabetic micro/macrovascular complications.