Increased risk of diabetes in patients with anxiety disorders: A population-based study

Few known studies have investigated the epidemiology of diabetes in patients with anxiety disorders. Therefore, the study aimed to determine the prevalence and incidence of diabetes in patients with anxiety disorders.

The National Health Research Institute provided a database of 1,000,000 random subjects for study. We obtained a random sample aged 18years and over 766,427 subjects in 2005. Those study subjects who had at least two primary or secondary diagnoses of anxiety disorders were identified. We compared the prevalence of diabetes in anxiety patients with the general population in 2005. Furthermore, we investigated this cohort from 2006 to 2010 to detect the incident cases of diabetes in anxiety patients compared with the general population.

The prevalence of diabetes in patients with anxiety disorders was higher than that in the general population (11.89% vs. 5.92%, odds ratio, 1.23; 95% confidence interval, 1.17-1.28) in 2005. The average annual incidence of diabetes in patients with anxiety disorders was also higher than that in the general population (2.25% vs. 1.11%, risk ratio 1.34; 95% confidence interval, 1.28-1.41) from 2006 to 2010. Compared with the general population, patients with anxiety disorders revealed a higher incidence of diabetes in all age groups among both females and males.

Patients with anxiety disorders had a much higher prevalence and incidence of diabetes in the younger adult age group than in the general population. The higher incidence of diabetes among anxiety patients was related to increased age, antipsychotic use, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.