Type 2 diabetes and cognitive performance in middle age: a cross-sectional study

Type 2 diabetes has been associated with cognitive decrements already in middle-age. However, the sample sizes of the studies have been small and the neuropsychological tests used have been heterogeneous. In addition, only a few studies have matched the groups in terms of age, education and gender. In this cross-sectional matched pairs study, we investigated the cognitive performance of Finnish middle-aged type 2 diabetes patients compared to healthy individuals.

A neuropsychological test battery consisting of 16 tests and 21 outcome measures was applied to 28 patients and 28 age-, education- and gender-matched healthy individuals. Various exclusion criteria were applied to minimize the risk of cognitive dysfunction due to factors other than diabetes.

We did not find between-group differences in any of the neuropsychological tests measuring attention, concept formation and reasoning, construction and motor performance, executive functions, memory, processing speed or working memory. In addition, there were no group differences in the frequency or severity of subjective cognitive symptoms, or in anxiety, depression, burnout, fatigue or alcohol use disorder symptoms. The effect sizes in this study were mostly negligible or small, with the mean effect size being -0.12.

In a carefully matched sample of middle-aged type 2 diabetes patients and healthy individuals, we found no significant effects and no meaningful evidence of cognitive differences between the groups.