- To help our audience catch up on the latest medical research and insights from health experts, we are highlighting key findings and conclusions from recent studies that Medical News Today has covered in detail in previous news reports.
- Two recently published studies focused on type 2 diabetes and the cognitive health complications associated with the disease, which affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
- One study suggests that maintaining stable hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels over time can help reduce the risk of dementia, while another showed that a healthy lifestyle can offset brain aging accelerated by diabetes.
In the United States, nearly 15% of all adults aged 18 or older had diabetes in 2021, and more than 90% of them had type 2 diabetes. Worldwide, the prevalence of diabetes is estimated to increase dramatically over the next 20 years, according to projections by the International Diabetes Federation.
Type 2 diabetes occurs when a person’s body is unable to respond properly to insulin or develops insulin resistance. As the disease progresses, the pancreas produces less and less insulin.
Medical News Today regularly reports on peer-reviewed studies related to type 2 diabetes. In this article, we highlight key findings from two recent studies on the link between type 2 diabetes and brain health, as well as expert opinions on the importance of the findings and insight in preventing and managing type 2 diabetes.
How does A1C level affect dementia risk?
Bottom line:
A study published August 2 in the journal JAMA Network Open suggests that a person’s hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level over time may be a key indicator in predicting dementia risk. The findings indicate that maintaining stable A1C levels within optimal ranges is associated with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in the elderly.
Key findings:
The study’s authors used a measure called time in HbA1c (TIR) to examine blood sugar levels over time. Compared to A1C levels, which measure average blood sugar levels over a three-month period, HbA1c TIR provides better insight into how stable or “controlled” blood sugar levels are over time.
A higher HbA1c TIR indicates more stable blood sugar levels, while a lower HbA1c TIR suggests more unstable blood sugar levels.
A large sample of 374,021 veterans with diabetes participated in the study. The average age of participants was 73.2 years, and 99% were men. During a follow-up period of up to 10 years, 11% (41,424) of them developed Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).
Can a healthy lifestyle slow down brain aging caused by diabetes?
Bottom line:
Existing evidence suggests that both pre-diabetic conditions and type 2 diabetes may increase the risk of certain brain-related health problems. A new study published August 28 in the journal Diabetes Care reports that while people with type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetic conditions may be at risk for accelerated brain aging, making healthy lifestyle choices, such as not smoking, can help them improve brain health.
Key findings:
For the study, the researchers analyzed brain MRI scans of more than 31,000 people between the ages of 40 and 70 from the UK Biobank. At the start of the study, about 43% of participants had a pre-diabetic state, and almost 4% had diabetes.
The team reported that pre-diabetes was associated with a brain age 0.5 years older than a person’s chronological age, while diabetes was associated with a brain age 2.3 years older.
Medical News Today interviewed Dr. Scott Kaiser, a board-certified geriatrician and director of Geriatric Cognitive Health at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, California, who reviewed the study. Kaiser said that while this study does not establish causality, it reinforces existing evidence on how a healthy lifestyle can help effectively manage diabetes and improve brain health.
“This study provides really great targets for lifestyle interventions to promote brain health, which is really important when we think about it not just (at) the individual level, but at the population level.” – Kaiser noted.
The study’s lead author, Abigail Dove, is a doctoral student at the Aging Research Center (ARC) in the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Dove told Medical News Today: “Diabetes is a well-established risk factor for dementia, but the role of diabetes in early brain aging is unclear. These are important questions from a public health perspective because we need to understand how to protect the brain health of people with diabetes as they age.”
