Associations of obesity-related indices with mild cognitive impairment in adults 60 years and older with type 2 diabetes: a retrospective study.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the relation between obesity-related indices and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D).

METHODS

A total of 597 eligible elderly patients with T2D were included in this retrospective study. All patients were divided into MCI group and normal cognitive group based on neuropsychological assessment. Twelve obesity-related indices were calculated, including body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), lipid accumulation product (LAP), body roundness index (BRI), conicity index (CI), visceral adiposity index (VAI), body adiposity index (BAI), abdominal volume index (AVI), a body shape index (ABSI), triglyceride glucose (TyG) index and cardiometabolic index (CMI). Multivariate logistic regression analysis, tests for trend and restricted cubic splines were used to assess the relationships between the tests for trend and MCI in elderly patients with T2D. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and areas under the curves (AUC) were used to assess the performance and predictive ability of the obesity-related indices for identifying MCI in elderly patients with T2D.

RESULTS

Multivariate logistic regression showed that elevated BMI, WHR, WHtR, LAP, BRI, CI, VAI, AVI, TyG index, and CMI were associated with an increased risk of MCI in elderly T2D patients after adjusting for potential confounders (all  < 0.05). In addition, TyG index, LAP, CMI, VAI, AVI, WHR, WHtR, BRI, and CI had negative correlations with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores (all  < 0.05). There was a significant linear trend between the levels of BMI ( for trend = 0.004, for non-linearity = 0.637), WHR ( for trend = 0.006, for non-linearity = 0.430), WHtR ( for trend < 0.001, for non-linearity = 0.452), BRI ( for trend < 0.001, for non-linearity = 0.252), AVI ( for trend < 0.001, for non-linearity = 0.944), and TyG index ( for trend < 0.001, for non-linearity = 0.514) and risk of MCI in elderly patients with T2D after adjusting for potential confounders. There was a nonlinear association between LAP, VAI or CMI and risk of MCI in elderly patients with T2D (all for non-linearity < 0.001). CMI had the greatest AUC (AUC = 0.682), followed by VAI (AUC = 0.679), TyG index (AUC = 0.673), LAP (AUC = 0.669), AVI (AUC = 0.580), WHtR and BRI (AUC = 0.575), BMI (AUC = 0.560), CI (AUC = 0.556), WHR (AUC = 0.554), BAI (AUC = 0.547), and ABSI (AUC = 0.536).

CONCLUSION

Elevated obesity-related indices, particularly CMI, VAI, TyG index and LAP, which displayed the higher predictive power, were instrumental in forecasting and evaluating MCI in elderly T2D patients. These findings may provide clues for future studies exploring early diagnostic biomarkers and treatment of MCI in elderly T2D patients.