April 21 (UPI) — People with Type 2 diabetes who show declining brain function, including memory loss, may be at increased risk for strokes and heart attacks compared with people without the most common form of diabetes, a study published Thursday found.
Among adults with Type 2 diabetes, those with severe cognitive impairment were up to 1.6 times more likely to experience major heart-related health events, such as heart attack or stroke, data published Thursday by the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism showed.
In addition, those adults were 1.8 times more likely to experience a stroke or die as a result compared with people without cognitive impairment, the researchers said.
“Our study found low scores on cognitive tests predicted heart disease in people with diabetes and other heart risk factors,” study co-author Dr. Hertzel C. Gerstein said in a press release.
“Proven heart medications should be offered to these patients to reduce their future risk of a heart attack or stroke,” said Gerstein, a professor of endocrinology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
About 30 million people in the United States have Type 2 diabetes, which affects the body’s ability to process, or metabolize, sugar, while 16 million have cognitive impairment, or a decline in brain function that is a precursor to dementia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.
There is some overlap between the two conditions, with Type 2 diabetes linked with an increased risk for cognitive impairment late in life, according to earlier research.
For this study, Gerstein and his colleagues tracked 8,772 adults with Type 2 diabetes from multiple countries over a five-year period.
People with the lowest level of cognitive function had a higher risk of heart attack and stroke than those with higher levels of cognitive function, the data showed.
The findings suggest cognitive function could predict a person’s future risk for heart disease, the researchers said.
“The explanation for this remains unclear,” Gerstein said.
