Scientists at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance in Germany (ZI) conducted a study to determine whether diabetes mellitus is associated with obesity, cardiovascular events, and depression in men and women separately. To do so, they analyzed data from SHI-accredited physicians on billings of all SHI patients from 2019. However, the prerequisite was an outpatient contact with a physician and, in the case of diabetics, a confirmed diagnosis with at least one contact spread over two quarters. Namely, the groups were divided into female and male subjects and each into confirmed diabetics and non-diabetics. Then, each diabetic subject was assigned a non-diabetic subject based on age, gender, as well as a place of residence:
Among women, the prevalence increases with age, as it does among men. While the prevalence in the group of 30 to 59-year-old female subjects is only 4.4 percent (men: 6.2 percent), it is already 20.2 (27.2) percent in the 60-79-year-olds and 31.9 (36.2) percent in the over-80s. In epidemiology, prevalence is a measure of the frequency of disease.
Concerning obesity, the result means that women and men show a 3.8 and 3.7-fold higher prevalence, respectively, if they have diabetes mellitus. However, the difference in disease prevalence is most pronounced among women aged 18-29 years. In this age group, diabetes in women is closely related to severe obesity (BMI greater than 30).
Cardiovascular events with high blood pressure and other cardiovascular system diseases such as heart failure, coronary heart disease (CHD), and strokes are also found to be dependent on „diabetes“ in women and men across all age groups. Male diabetics, for example, show a 1.8-fold increased prevalence in contrast to men without diabetes. Depression is also more pronounced in women, while many men suffer from coronary heart disease. Women with diabetes suffer from depression in 26.9 percent of the cases studied. In contrast, female non-diabetics suffer from depression only 19.8 percent of the time. The researchers found a 1.4-fold higher prevalence of the disease in diabetic women across all age groups.
Source: Aerzteblatt.de