News Finding: "The effects of type 2 diabetes and poor metabolic health at midlife, and the impact of accrual of cerebrovascular lesions at older age, both deserve further study to inform preventative efforts against dementia," the authors write.
Paper Finding: The effects of type 2 diabetes and poor metabolic health at midlife, and the impact of accrual of cerebrovascular lesions at older age, both deserve further study to inform preventative efforts against dementia.
News Context: At baseline, individuals with diabetes had lower brain and greater ventricular volumes (b, -14.273 and b, 2.672, respectively); however, researchers found no evidence that brain atrophy occurred at a greater rate over time or mediated the diabetes-cognition relationship. "The effects of type 2 diabetes and poor metabolic health at midlife, and the impact of accrual of cerebrovascular lesions at older age, both deserve further study to inform preventative efforts against dementia," the authors write. One author disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
Paper Context: Strengths of our study include longitudinal measurement of a wide range of cognitive tests covering different cognitive domains in conjunction with serial brain MRI scans. Conclusion and area for future research In this study, type 2 diabetes was associated with decline in verbal memory and fluency in older community-dwelling people without dementia over a period of~5 years but not with MRI markers of brain atrophy. The effects of type 2 diabetes and poor metabolic health at midlife, and the impact of accrual of cerebrovascular lesions at older age, both deserve further study to inform preventative efforts against dementia.