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Dr. Sherita Hill Golden of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore led the study which tracked an ethnically diverse group - 5,000 men and women between ages 45 to 84 for three years. The study revealed that people with depression have a higher risk of developing the most common form of diabetes than others.

Symptoms of depression were 42% more likely to develop diabetes by the end of the study than those without such symptoms - the more serious the symptoms, the higher the risk of diabetes.

Researchers accounted for factors including obesity, lack of physical activity and smoking. They found the risk for diabetes was still 34% higher in patients with depression.

People in our study who had elevated symptoms of depression, were more likely to eat more calories, exercise less and were more likely to be smokers. As a consequence, they were also more obese.

Dr. Golden’s study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study also measured the risk for developing depression among people who already had diabetes. To do this, the researchers excluded people who had elevated symptoms of depression at the outset of the study.