美国研究人员最新公布的一份研究报告显示,对于那些患有糖尿病的儿童或青少年来说,血糖控制不力以及频繁光顾急救室其实都是他们可能正在经受抑郁症折磨的信号之一。
据路透社4月3日报道,本次研究所涉及的对象为2672名年龄在10岁到21岁之间的糖尿病患者,他们的平均患病时间为5年。其中大多数人患的是Ⅰ型糖尿病,也就是说其体内专门产生胰岛素的那些细胞因为错误的免疫反应而彻底失效,另外还包括371名Ⅱ型糖尿病患者。得了这种病的人往往变得十分肥胖,而造成这一现象的原因则是由于他们的身体无法对胰岛素加以正确的利用。
该研究报告的首席作者简·劳伦斯博士在接受路透社记者采访时表示,他们"或许应该考虑一下对于那些在控制血糖方面显得麻烦重重的年轻糖尿病患者进行有无抑郁情绪的筛查"。来自美国南加州帕萨迪纳市的私人医疗体系凯泽医疗网的劳伦斯还指出,这次研究并不是医学史上第一次针对儿童糖尿病患者抑郁症状所进行的调查。但在此前完成的那些研究中,大多数都显得规模偏小,且仅包括Ⅰ型糖尿病患者或是所使用的抑郁症的定义过于严格。劳伦斯说:"这次名为'青年糖尿病的探索'的研究其实是迄今为止对于美国糖尿病患儿所做的规模最大的一次研究。"
研究发现,14%的研究对象出现了轻微的抑郁情绪,而具有中等程度或较严重抑郁情绪的人所占的比例则为8.6%。一般来说,女性的抑郁程度要超过男性。正如文章开头所说的,对病情缺乏控制且三天两头出入急救室都会引发抑郁情绪。对于那些男性研究对象来说,Ⅱ型糖尿病较之Ⅰ型糖尿病更容易使人产生抑郁情绪。而对女性而言,出现糖尿病之外的其它疾病就通常意味着抑郁情绪即将到来。
报道说,此项研究的具体内容刊登在《儿科医学》杂志上。
(国际在线独家资讯 张咏)
Poor blood sugar control and frequent emergency room visits are among the signs that a child or adolescent with diabetes may be suffering from depression, according to new research.
The findings suggest that pediatricians or other healthcare providers "might want to consider screening for depressed mood" in young diabetic patients having trouble keeping their blood sugar under control, Dr. Jean M. Lawrence told Reuters Health.
This study is not the first to investigate depressive symptoms in children with diabetes, lead author Lawrence, from Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena, said.
However, most of the other studies were small, included only type 1 diabetics or used a rigid psychiatric definition of depression, she said.
"The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth is actually the largest study of diabetes in kids in the United States to date," Lawrence commented.
The analysis involved 2672 individuals, between 10 and 21 years of age, who had diabetes for an average duration of 5 years. As reported in the medical journal Pediatrics, most had type 1 diabetes, which is the form of the disease in which insulin-producing cells are knocked out by a faulty immune reaction, but 371 had type 2 diabetes, which is usually related to obesity and results from the body's inability to use insulin properly.
The researchers found that 14 percent of the subjects had a mildlydepressed mood and 8.6 percent had a moderately or severelydepressed mood. On average, females were more depressed than males.
As mentioned, poorer diabetes control and more frequent ER visits were both associated with depressed mood.
In male subjects, type 2 diabetes was more closely linked to depressed mood than type 1 diabetes. In females, the presence of other illnesses was predictive of depressed mood.