Dr. Cassandra Arroyo, of Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, and colleagues analyzed data for more than 72,000 female nurses between 45 to 72 years of age who had not been diagnosed with diabetes at study enrollment in 1992.

The researchers report that 973 cases of type 2 diabetes were identified over four years of follow-up. Women with depressive symptoms had a 22 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, after taking into consideration age, weight and other potentially contributing factors.

The researchers note that they did not collect enough information to make a clinical diagnosis of depression per se.

In an analysis that excluded women diagnosed with diabetes between 1992 and 1994--to eliminate existing subclinical diabetes at study entry--472 cases of type 2 diabetes were identified. Women with depressive symptoms included in this analysis had a 29 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

"These findings require further corroboration but suggest that depressive symptoms may identify a group at increased risk of subsequent type 2 diabetes," Arroyo and colleagues conclude.

They also point out that the subjects in the study were mainly white women, and that the results may not apply to other groups.