Cognitive Function and the Risk for Diabetes

New study found low cognitive function may be a risk factor for diabetes…

Previous studies have shown that diabetes increases the rate of cognitive decline and the risk for dementia. This can be partly explained by cardiovascular risk factors, education, socioeconomic status and lifestyle factors or by several hypotheses such as inflammation, microvascular disease and the effects of insulin sensitivity on the brain. However, the potential association between low cognitive function and the development of diabetes is still unclear.

The cohort study data was collected at the Staff Periodic Examination Center of the Israeli Army Medical Corps. The data collected at pre-military recruitment included men aged 25 years and older without a history of diabetes and available data of general intelligence score (GIS), a comprehensive measure of cognitive function at age 17 years.

In the study results, 770 new cases of diabetes were diagnosed among 35,500 men followed in an average of 5.5 years. Participants in the lowest general intelligence score had a 2 fold greater risk for developing diabetes compared with the highest GIS category (HR 2.1; 95% CI 1.5-3.1, P<0.001) after adjustment for age, BMI, fasting plasma glucose, and lifestyle risk factors. Also, participants in the lowest GIS group developed diabetes at the age of 39.5 +/- 4.7 years and those in the highest GIS developed diabetes at the age of 41.5 +/- 5.1 years. In summary, the study shows a potential link between diabetes and increased cognitive decline, lower cognitive function at late adolescence is independently associated with an increased risk for diabetes. Practice Pearls

• Low cognitive function shows positive risk for the development of diabetes.
• The use of a general intelligence test alone cannot be used to assess the relationship between specific cognitive function and diabetes.
• Similar results from US and Europe suggested the results applied to a wide population of young adults.

Twig G, Gluzman I, Tirosh A, et al. “Cognitive Function and the risk for diabetes among young men”. August 2014.
https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/37/11/2982.full