Analysis of correlation between the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and level of adiponectin in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the correlation between the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and serum level of adiponectin in elderly patients with Type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM), so as to provide evidence for early diagnosis of MCI and effective evaluation of the impairment of cognitive functions, thereby preventing the impairment of cognitive function as early as possible.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Clinical data were collected from 260 T2DM patients (≥ 60 years old) in Endocrine Department and 120 healthy subjects (≥ 60 years old) who underwent physical examination in our hospital between June 2015 and June 2017. According to the evaluation results of MCI, these T2DM patients were further divided into the T2DM + MCI group (n = 138) and the T2DM + NMCI group (n = 122). General data, including gender, age, disease history and body mass index (BMI), and the laboratory indexes, including serum adiponectin, fasting blood glucose (FBG), glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and blood fat, were collected for statistical analysis in T2DM + MCI group, T2DM + NMCI group and healthy control group.

RESULTS

Comparisons among T2DM + MCI group, T2DM + NMCI group and healthy control group, showed that the serum level of adiponectin in T2DM + MCI group was significantly lower than those in remaining two groups (p < 0.01). Spearman correlation analysis revealed that score of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) was positively correlated with the serum level of adiponectin (r = 0.446, p < 0.01). Multivariate linear regression analysis indicated that education (standard β = 0.325, p = 0.003), age (standard β = -0.236, p = 0.016), disease course of hypertension (standard β = -0.242, p = 0.006), disease course of diabetes mellitus (standard β = -0.377, p < 0.001) and the level of adiponectin were correlated with the cognitive impairment. The results of itemized assessment in MoCA scale showed that in T2DM + MCI group, the scores in visuospatial and executive abilities, attention, language and orientation were significantly lower than those in other two groups (p < 0.01). As for the delayed recall, the score in T2DM + MCI group was significantly lower than those in other two groups (p < 0.01), while the score in T2DM + NMCI group was lower than that in the healthy control group (p < 0.01); in terms of the naming ability and abstraction, no statistically significant differences were identified among three groups (p > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Age, poor education, disease course of hypertension, disease course of diabetes mellitus and a low level of adiponectin in serum are the risk factors in MCI of T2DM patients. Besides, the level of adiponectin in serum of T2DM patients is correlated with the development of MCI; elderly T2DM patients are afflicted by cognitive impairment, mainly in visuospatial and executive abilities, attention, language, delayed recall and orientation.