ABSTRACT
Past research highlights a bi-directional link between diabetes and mood disorders. But little is known about the relationship between diabetes and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The aim of the present chapter is to investigate current evidence linking obsessive-compulsive disorder, insulin-signaling, and diabetes. A PubMed search was conducted to review all the possible studies assessing diabetes, glucose metabolism, and insulin-signaling in obsessive patients and vice versa. Some clinical and epidemiological studies revealed a greater prevalence of diabetes in obsessive disorder and vice versa than the general population. Animal and genetic studies indicated a pivotal role of insulin-signaling in the pathophysiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder. While deep brain stimulation seems to increase insulin sensitivity, a possible protective role of serotonin reuptake-inhibitors on diabetic risk demands in-depth research. This chapter begins with an introduction to the concomitant existence of psychiatric disorders and chronic diseases like diabetes that gained critical attention among biomedical researchers. This chapter covers role of glycemic control, insulin signaling, glucose metabolism in brain, genetics, and the brain circuits involved in glucose addiction in relation to obsessive-compulsive disorder. The chapter is organized according to various research findings in recent years. Explanations are based on empirical knowledge.
