As the epidemic of type 2 diabetes continues to mount in the U.S., the grievous long-term impact of the condition is increasingly apparent and challenging to patients and health care providers alike.

Those with the condition face higher risk of heart disease and stroke, plus circulatory problems that can lead to amputation of limbs.

Now a new study suggests that there's something new to consider — diabetes also boosts the risk of vascular dementia, especially in women.

"Vascular dementia, in contrast [to Alzheimer's], is the result of impaired blood flow to the brain, usually by a series of small, imperceptible strokes," study author Rachel R. Huxley of Curtin University in Perth, Australia, told Reuters. Diabetes in women seems to confer more risk for other conditions as well, "these findings add to the evidence that diabetes confers a greater vascular hazard in women compared with men," she continued.

The latest review, which appeared in Diabetes Care, looked at 14 studies with a total of more than 2 million individuals. Of these, over 100,000 patients suffered from dementia. The findings showed that those with diabetes had a 60 percent greater chance of having dementia than those without the underlying condition. And diabetic women faced twice as great a chance of developing dementia than men with the illness.

Interestingly, an earlier study of 35,000 young men, followed for a median of 5.5 years, determined that there was some link between lower cognitive function and later onset of diabetes. In that study, published in Diabetes Care, lead author Gilad Twig of the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel, stated that, "diabetes is a risk factor for an accelerated rate of cognitive decline and dementia. However, the relationship between cognitive function and the subsequent development of diabetes is unclear."

The analysis showed that those with lower cognitive scores at age 17 did have a higher risk for developing diabetes, with about "a twofold increase in incidence," according to the study.

This earlier study of men noted, as did the latest report, that there may be other factors coincident with cognition and diabetes. For example, cognitive levels may also impact diet, exercise, education, obesity and other things that can lead to the development of adult onset diabetes.

“We can’t definitively say whether the relationship is causal or not because the studies were all observational (rather than randomized trials) and therefore there always remains the possibility that the relationship is confounded,” Huxley said.

Alzheimers/Neurology Homepage