All around the world, hundreds of millions of people face long bouts of major depression.
For many people, life conditions are depressing, but for up to 48% of diabetics, the underlying cause of depression may be poorly regulated blood sugar levels.
Depression is thought to be twice as common in diabetics as in the population generally.
Different factors can contribute to the development of depression and includes:

• emotions
• environmental factors
• biology

Scientists at the diabetes specialty clinic at the SMS Hospitals in Jaipur, India studied fifty adults who had type 2 diabetes and a control group of thirty adults who were diabetes-free.
They excluded anyone who had a previous history of depression or any other psychiatric illness, history of addiction or substance, high blood pressure, or any medical condition except diabetes.
(The volunteers in the control had none of these conditions.
) Using a standard psychological exam for measuring depression, the researchers then assessed the psychological status of the eighty people in the study.
The researchers found that 46% of the type 2 diabetics in this study suffered depression.
Of all the diabetics in the study:

• 12% were were suffering from mild depression
• 16% from moderate depression, and
• 18% from severe depression

There was a trend suggesting higher blood sugars tracked to the most severe depression, but the study group was too small to establish definitive statistics.
The average fasting blood sugar level in the type 2 diabetics who did not display depression was 123 mg/dL (6.
8 mmol/L).
The average fasting blood sugar level among the diabetics who had depression was 151 mg/dL (8.
4 mmol/L).
Researchers also tested mental skills in both groups.
Diabetics did not do as well as non-diabetics.
Diabetics did worse than non-diabetics on every measure of mental ability the researchers tested but especially in tests that involved:

• counting numbers forwards
• counting numbers backwards, and
• recognizing symbols

Diabetics did relatively well in tests that required the use of language, but relatively poorly in tests that required the ability to learn new information quickly.
There was no clear-cut relationship between depression and other forms of mental decline.
The researchers admitted that they had not studied enough people to reach definitive, sweeping conclusions.
This and other studies, however, suggest that keeping blood sugar levels down goes a long way toward keeping mental faculties sharp.
Although this study showed 46% of those tested suffered some degree of depression, it also showed that lower blood sugar levels gave a lesser degree and chance of depression.
Unfortunately depression makes people less motivated to eat healthy foods and to exercise, which means higher blood sugar levels.