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Dementia risk increases with type 2 diabetes
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There is a 60% greater risk for dementia in men and women with type 2 diabetes compared with those without diabetes.
The additional risk for vascular dementia was greater in women, according to researchers.
Rachel R. Huxley, DPhil, of the School of Public Health at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and colleagues conducted a systematic search to identify studies published before November 2014 that reported the association between diabetes and dementia. The data included 14 studies, 2,310,330 adults and 102,174 patients with dementia, including 9,253 vascular cases of dementia (52% women) and 90,233 cases of nonvascular dementia (58% women). Researchers sought to determine the sex-specific link between women and men with diabetes and incident dementia.
The risk for dementia increased with diabetes in women (RR = 1.68; 95% CI, 1.64-1.71) and men (RR = 1.61; 95% CI, 1.42-1.83) compared with no diabetes. Similarly, the risk for vascular dementia (women, RR = 2.34; 95% CI, 1.86-2.94; men, RR = 1.73; 95% CI, 1.61-1.85) and nonvascular dementia (women, RR = 1.53; 95% CI, 1.35-1.73; men, RR = 1.49; 95% CI, 1.31-1.69) was increased with diabetes compared with no diabetes.
There was a 19% greater risk for vascular dementia among women with diabetes compared with men with diabetes (P < .001).
“Future prospective studies, with extensive phenotypic and genetic data on risk factors common to both diabetes and subtypes of dementia, are needed to examine whether these relationships are causal,” the researchers wrote. “Moreover, our finding of a greater diabetes-related risk of vascular dementia in women than in men contributes to the growing evidence base that diabetes confers a proportionally greater vascular hazard in women than in men.” – by Amber Cox
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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