NEW DELHI: For men, type 2 diabetes more often sets the stage for heart and kidney disease; for women, the greater threat appears to be mental health problems, a new study tracking nearly 29,000 patients has found.The study, published in PLOS Medicine, followed 28,720 people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes between 2010 and 2020 using linked primary and secondary healthcare records in the UK. Researchers used a multi-state analysis to track the order and timing of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, end-stage renal disease and mental health conditions over a median follow-up of 6.8 years. Women were more likely than men to be diagnosed with a mental health condition.Women were more likely than men to be diagnosed with a mental health condition, including anxiety, depression or somatoform disorders, after developing diabetes. Such conditions were recorded in 8.1% of women compared with 5.3% of men.Men, meanwhile, were more likely to develop cardiovascular disease or end-stage renal disease, with 8.4% following this trajectory compared with 5.3% of women.
Mental health risks are higher for women with diabetes as compared to men
Senior endocrinologist Prof Ravinder Goswami of All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said diabetes can affect men and women differently. Men may develop diabetes at a younger age, while women with diabetes lose the natural protection against heart disease that is usually seen before menopause. The study also found that women with diabetes may have a higher risk of problems related to memory, thinking and mental health.However, he cautioned that these problems may not be caused by diabetes alone, as cognitive and neuropsychiatric problems are generally more common in women. He said doctors should, therefore, watch for these issues while managing diabetes.Hypertension was the most common complication after type-2 diabetes across all age groups and in both sexes. It affected 21.1% of men and 20.2% of women. Men also experienced most complications earlier than women, while women generally had a later onset of events.The study linked diabetes, mental health and mortality, finding that people who developed a mental health condition after diabetes died earlier. Among those with the same disease trajectory, men died on average nine years younger than women.Despite this, women had higher average healthcare utilisation and long-term prescribing than men. The researchers said the lower healthcare use among men in the high-risk mental health trajectory could point to gaps in engagement with healthcare services.
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The findings point to the need for sex-specific diabetes care, including routine mental health screening, particularly for younger women, and earlier cardiovascular and kidney monitoring for men.The researchers further added that tracking the sequence and timing of complications could help identify patients at higher risk and enable earlier intervention. However, as an observational study, the findings cannot establish cause and effect, and differences in mental health diagnoses may partly reflect healthcare-seeking behaviour.
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