European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Introduction: Depression is a psychiatric disorder characterized by depressed mood, loss of interest in activities and loss of energy that lasts for two weeks or more. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a group of metabolic disorders that share common phenotype of chronic hyperglycaemia. High sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) an important sensitive diagnostic and prognostic marker for many systemic inflammatory diseases, as very low concentrations of hs-CRP can be analyzed in the serum.  High prevalence of depression and diabetes mellitus worldwide causes increased morbidity & mortality & have increased economic burden in the community.Pathogenesis of depression and diabetes may be associated with the destruction of brain cells and pancreatic cells resulting from immune and inflammatory mediators.  Studies about the role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of depression and diabetes mellitus, shown conflicting and non conclusive results hence any reliable clue will be considered valuable.  Aims & Objective: To compare the serum levels of hs-CRP in patients of depression with diabetes mellitus and in patients of depression without diabetes mellitus. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study included 50patients of depression with diabetes mellitus (case group) and 50 age and gender matched patients of depression without diabetes (control group). Serum hs-CRP levels were measuredfor both the groups.  Results: The mean concentrations of hs-CRP in the case group and the control group were 7.98 ± 1.14 mg/l and 4.52 ± 0.68 mg/l respectively. The difference is statistically significant (P < 0.05) Thus our study yielded higher levels of serum hs-CRP in case group than in control group.  Conclusion: This study has shown that inflammation is more evident inpatients of depression with diabetes mellitus as compared to in patients of depression without diabetes.