Diabetes Drug Linked to a Decreased Risk of Dementia

These medication might efficiently forestall dementia in high-risk people with delicate or average sort 2 diabetes.

In response to the scientists, it might be worthwhile to prioritize these medication for future repurposing analysis.

In response to a long-term research just lately printed within the open-access journal BMJ Open Diabetes Analysis & Care, utilizing the diabetes drug often known as glitazones is related to a 22% decrease danger of dementia. Glitazones are sometimes often known as thiazolidinediones or TZDs for brief and are an older class of sort 2 diabetes medication.

In response to the researchers, these medication might successfully forestall dementia in high-risk people with delicate to average sort 2 diabetes, and it might now be worthwhile to offer them precedence in future scientific trials to find out whether or not they are often repurposed. 

Researchers have begun to analyze whether or not diabetes medication might doubtlessly assist forestall or remedy dementia since sort 2 diabetes and dementia share a number of physiological patterns. Nevertheless, the outcomes have been inconsistent up to now.

The researchers in contrast the incidence of dementia in older adults with sort 2 diabetes who had been receiving both sulfonylurea or thiazolidinedione (TZD) with these receiving metformin alone with a view to shed additional gentle on this.

They used information from 559,106 people with sort 2 diabetes who had been recognized within the nationwide Veteran Affairs (VA) Well being System between January 2000 and December 2019.

Solely older sufferers (aged no less than 60) and given a primary prescription of metformin, a sulfonylurea (tolbutamide, glimepiride, glipizide, or glyburide), or a TZD (rosiglitazone or pioglitazone) between January 2001 and December 2017 had been included (559,106) within the research. Their well being was tracked for a median of almost 8 years.

After no less than 1 yr of drug remedy, using a TZD alone was related to a 22% decrease danger of dementia from any trigger, in contrast with using metformin alone.

Particularly, it was related to an 11% decrease danger of Alzheimer’s disease and a 57% lower risk of vascular dementia. Given that vascular diseases increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, TZDs may also help to reduce dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in part through their favorable effects on the vascular system, say the researchers.

While the risk of dementia from any cause was 11% lower for the use of metformin and TZD combined, it was 12% higher for the use of a sulfonylurea drug alone, prompting the researchers to suggest that supplementing a sulfonylurea with either metformin or a TZD may partially offset these effects.

Further in-depth analysis indicated that those younger than 75 benefited more from a TZD than older patients, highlighting the importance of early prevention for dementia, note the researchers. And these drugs also seemed to be more protective in overweight or obese patients.

This is an observational study, so definitive conclusions can’t be drawn about cause and effect. And the researchers acknowledge that certain potentially influential information wasn’t available, including kidney function and genetic factors, and that study participants were predominantly male and White.

But they suggest that future studies for repurposing diabetes drugs for dementia prevention might want to consider prioritizing TZDs, based on their findings.

And they conclude: “These findings may help inform medication selection for [older] sufferers with [type 2 diabetes] at excessive danger of dementia.”

Reference: “Use of oral diabetes medicines and the danger of incident dementia in US veterans aged ≥60 years with sort 2 diabetes” by Xin Tang, Roberta Diaz Brinton, Zhao Chen, Leslie V. Farland, Yann Klimentidis, Raymond Migrino, Peter Reaven, Kathleen Rodgers and Jin J Zhou, 11 October 2022, BMJ Open Diabetes Analysis & Care.
DOI: 10.1136/bmjdrc-2022-002894

The research was funded by the Nationwide Human Genome Analysis Institute, the Nationwide Science Basis, the Nationwide Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Illness, and the Nationwide Coronary heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.