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PTSD symptom reduction tied to lower risk of type 2 diabetes

Key clinical point: Clinically meaningful reductions in PTSD symptoms in veterans led to a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes as measured by PTSD Checklist (PCL) scores.

Major finding: Patients with clinically meaningful decreases in PCL score had significantly lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes (hazard ratio, 0.50; 95% confidence interval, 0.27-0.90; P equals .02), and those results remained consistent after adjusting for age (HR, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.25-0.82; P equals .01), calculating the results using weighted data (HR, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.26-0.98; P equals .04), and factoring in hypertension, obesity, and hyperlipidemia (HR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.26-0.95; P equals .03).

Study details: A retrospective study of 5,916 patients in the Veterans Health Affairs system between 2008 and 2012.

Disclosures: This study was funded in part by a grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Four authors reported receiving one or more grants from the institute during the study period. Some authors reported receiving other support from Noblis Therapeutics and Saint Louis University both during and outside the study period. The other authors report no relevant conflicts of interest.

Citation:

Scherrer JF et al. JAMA Psychiatry. 2019 Aug 21. doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.2096.