Diabetes diagnosis at middle age linked to memory problems later

A new diabetes study found that a receiving a diagnosis for diabetes in midlife may increase the risk for developing the memory and thinking problems over the next 20 years.

The study in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine was based on more than 15,000 US adults followed from 1987 to 2013.

For the study, the researchers looked at data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, which followed 15,792 middle-aged adults beginning in 1987 and followed them for about 11 years. During that time, participants followed up every three years, four different times. The average age of the participants was about 57 years when they entered the study. Around 25% of the participants were black, and about 13 percent had diabetes.

"The lesson is that to have a healthy brain when you're 70, you need to eat right and exercise when you're 50," said study leader Dr. Elizabeth Selvin, an associate professor of epidemiology at School of Public Health, in a press release. "There is a substantial cognitive decline associated with diabetes... and we know how to prevent or delay the diabetes associated with this decline."

"It gives you an enormous window of opportunity for prevention," said coauthor Dr. A. Richey Sharrett. "After all, I think people dread dementia more than they dread anything in old age."

The study showed that people with diabetes had a greater cognitive decline during the study and those with so-called pre-diabetes had a steeper decline than people without pre-diabetes. "The earlier the prevention starts, the greater the benefit may be," Sharrett said.

Diabetes can strike when a person has elevated sugar (glucose) levels in the blood, damaging tissues, causing blindness and nerve damage.

Diabetes can often be controlled through diet and exercise, as well as proper medication.