Impact of glucose metabolism and birth size on cognitive performance in elderly subjects

Abstract

Aims: We aimed to investigate the impact of diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance on cognitive performance and to explore the association between birth weight and cognitive performance among diabetic subjects. Methods: We performed a standard oral glucose tolerance test and a computerised test for assessment of cognitive performance (CogState®) in 1243 subjects; 173 of them had type 2 diabetes. At the time of cognitive testing the mean age of the subjects was 64 years. Subjects with type 1 diabetes or a history of stroke were excluded. Results: Subjects with known diabetes performed significantly poorer in cognitive tasks measuring visual attention, working memory and episodic learning tha..