Diabetes Tied to Worse Word Recall in Older Adults

A study published in Diabetologia suggests older people with type 2 diabetes may have more difficulty recalling words than their non-diabetic counterparts, reports Reuters Health . Researchers monitored 705 older adults with no dementia, age 50 to 90, for an average of 4.6 years; 348 were diabetic. Verbal fluency declined slightly among diabetics and improved moderately in those without diabetes. At three points during the study, participants underwent brain scans and took cognitive tests involving verbal skills. The diabetics already had more brain atrophy at the start of the study, but scans showed no difference between them and non-diabetics in the rate of brain contraction. Atrophy also did not seem to account for the connection between diabetes and cognitive decline. However, the outcomes imply that brain changes related to diabetes may commence earlier than previously assumed, possibly in middle age.