Diabetes tied to male depression

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Diabetes affects men’s emotional and sexual health, according to a new study by the American Diabetes Association.

It has long been documented that diabetes, America’s fastest-growing disease, can lead to sometimes deadly cardiovascular problems as well as kidney failure, blindness and lower limb amputations.

But the new report shows that the widespread illness is closely linked with depression, and, in men, to lower testosterone levels, which can lead to sexual dysfunction.

“We don’t know which came first,” said Richard Bergenstal, a Minnesota endocrinologist and a vice president at the American Diabetes Association, about the emerging link between diabetes and depression.

“But we know now that if you have depression, you are more prone to diabetes, and until you treat the depression, you can’t really do a decent job of managing diabetes, because doing so requires good eating, exercising and taking medicine a couple times a day,” he said.

The American Diabetes Association surveyed 1,000 men with type 2 diabetes and their spouses. Its findings are included in a new handbook, “The Modern Man’s Guide to Living Well with Diabetes.”

The free booklet will be available today at a fund-raising event for diabetes sufferers, at the DCR Hatch Memorial Shell at 11 a.m.