2. Diabetics at significantly higher risk for Alzheimer's disease
Study released May 17, 2004, appeared in the May issue of the Archives of Neurology.

The research, by Dr. Zoe Arvanitakis, Dr. David Bennett, and colleagues at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago was done on a group of 824 Catholic nuns, priests, and brothers participating in the Religious Orders Study were followed for an average of 5.5 years. They received detailed clinical evaluations annually, including neuropsychological testing of five cognitive "systems" commonly affected by aging, AD, and other dementias - episodic memory (memory of specific life events), semantic memory (general knowledge), working memory (ability to hold and mentally rearrange information), perceptual speed (the speed with which simple perceptual comparisons can be made, such as whether two strings of numbers are the same or different), and visuospatial ability (the ability to recognize spatial patterns). Over the study period, 151 of the participants developed AD, including 31 who had diabetes. The researchers found a 65 percent increase in the risk of developing AD among those with diabetes compared with people who did not have diabetes.

In measures of cognitive function, only in the area of perceptual speed was there an association with an increased rate of decline over time, by about 44%, when comparing the diabetes and non-diabetes groups.  In other areas of cognition, the rate of change over the time period of the study was no different in the two groups. However, at the start of the study, the baseline cognitive function, the scores of people with diabetes were lower than those of people without diabetes.

"We found that diabetes was related to decline in some cognitive systems but not in others," says Arvanitakis, the lead author of the report. "Since all participants have agreed to organ donation, we will have the opportunity to examine the pathologic basis of the association of diabetes to cognitive decline." The Rush researchers also expressed their indebtedness to the more than 1,000 nuns, priests, and brothers from across the U.S. participating in the Religious Orders Study.

"The research on a possible link between diabetes and increased risk of AD is intriguing, and this study gives us important additional insights," says Neil Buckholtz, Ph.D., head of the Dementias of Aging Branch in the NIA's neurosciences program. "Further research, some currently underway, will tell us whether therapies for diabetes may in fact play a role in lowering risk of AD or cognitive decline."

"This study represents a continuation of our research on possible risk factors for Alzheimer's disease," Arvanitakis said. "Researchers have not yet found a cure for Alzheimer's disease, but if we can identify factors that influence one's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, this may allow us to make progress towards identifying factors that decrease the risk of Alzheimer's disease."(10).

 

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