Researchers from the University of Maryland examined the medical claims of nearly 120,000 patients between the ages of 5 and 20 years old who were using antidepressants. The team compared incident cases of diabetes among the young patients using antidepressants — patients who didn’t discontinue the medications for more than 90 days during the study period — with those in former patients.
Researchers found that the risk for type 2 diabetes was nearly twice as high among current users of certain types of antidepressants, they reported in JAMA. The antidepressants included selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac (fluoxetine) and Zoloft (sertraline), and serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) such as Effexor (venlafaxine) and Cymbalta (duloxetine). They added that the risk increased the longer one was on an antidepressant and the higher the daily dose.
Researchers also noted that for adolescents on older types of antidepressants for long periods of time, there was no increased diabetes risk.
