Antidepressant medicine use and risk of developing diabetes during the diabetes prevention program and diabetes prevention program outcomes study

Abstract

Objective: To assess the association between antidepressant medicine use and risk of developing diabetes during the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) and Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study (DPPOS).

Research design and methods: DPP/DPPOS participants were assessed for diabetes every 6 months and for antidepressant use every 3 months in DPP and every 6 months in DPPOS for a median 10.0-year follow-up.

Results: Controlled for factors associated with diabetes risk, continuous antidepressant use compared with no use was associated with diabetes risk in the placebo (adjusted hazard ratio 2.34 [95% CI 1.32-4.15]) and lifestyle (2.48 [1.45-4.22]) arms, but not in the metformin arm (0.55 [0.25-1.19]).

Conclusions: Continuous antidepressant use was significantly associated with diabetes risk in the placebo and lifestyle arms. Measured confounders and mediators did not account for this association, which could represent a drug effect or reflect differences not assessed in this study between antidepressant users and nonusers.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00038727.

Figure 1

For each treatment group, from left to right, the three bars represent no exposure, intermittent exposure, and continuous exposure. The error bars represent 95% CIs for the point estimates.