Impact of glucose metabolism and birth size on cognitive performance in elderly subjects.
OBJECTIVE
We aimed to investigate the impact of diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance on cognitive performance and to explore the association between birth weight and cognitive performance among diabetic subjects.


METHODS
We performed a standard oral glucose tolerance test and a computerised test for assessment of cognitive performance (CogState) in 1243 subjects; 173 of them had type 2 diabetes. At the time of cognitive testing the mean age of the subjects was 64 years. Subjects with type 1 diabetes or a history of stroke were excluded.


RESULTS
Subjects with known diabetes performed significantly poorer in cognitive tasks measuring visual attention, working memory and episodic learning than subjects with normal glucose tolerance. Subjects with newly diagnosed diabetes or milder impairments in glucose regulation did not differ from the normoglycaemic group. A low birth weight enhanced the association between diabetes and poor performance in the working memory and episodic learning tasks.


CONCLUSIONS
Poorer cognitive performance was associated with known type 2 diabetes but not with newly diagnosed diabetes or milder impairments in glucose regulation. Low birth weight was found to be an additional vulnerability factor enhancing cognitive decline in diabetic subjects.
Paile-Hyvärinen
Maria
M
National Institute for Health and Welfare, Department of Chronic Disease Prevention, Diabetes Prevention Unit, Helsinki, Finland. maria.paile@helsinki.fi
Räikkönen
Katri
K
Kajantie
Eero
E
Darby
David
D
Ylihärsilä
Hilkka
H
Salonen
Minna K
MK
Osmond
Clive
C
Eriksson
Johan G
JG
D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention; D001724:Birth Weight; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D003071:Cognition; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D003925:Diabetic Angiopathies / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005951:Glucose Tolerance Test; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time; D012016:Reference Values
D001786:Blood Glucose