Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: To determine the relationship between metabolic syndrome (MS) and cognitive decline in type 2 diabetes patients over 65 years age.

Methods: The age of the participants were between 60 and 87 years old. According to NCEP ATP III criteria 30 had MS and 28 had not. Cognitive performance was determined with the use of standardised mini mental test and the mini mental scores (MMS) of the two groups were compared. Apart from the MS we investigated the relationship between MMS and age, gender, educational status, tobacco and alcohol use, the history of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and stroke, medication use (antihypertensive, insulin, oral antidiabetic, statin) and BMI. Depression, which is a cause of pseudodementia, was also assessed with the use of geriatric depression scale (GDS).

Results: The MMS was low in ten patients (33.3%) in the MS group, and in ten subjects (25%) in the control group. We could not find difference between MMS’s of two groups statistically. In this study the MMS was low in subjects with high fasting plasma glucose level, tobacco use, insulin use, advanced age and depression. The GDS’s of two groups were similar. There was not difference in the MMS’s between patients with high blood pressure, high triglyceride level, low HDL cholesterol level, history of AMI and stroke, low educational status, high BMI and in whom without them. We also could not find difference between MMS’s of the patients who use antihypertensives, oral antidiabetics and statins and in whom not using these medications.

Conclusion: The number of elderly people increases in Tunisian, however, cognitive decline related to diseases also increases. The establishment of the risk factors, which affect the cognitive functions and prevention of them in elderly, would prevent the cognitive decline, one of the important causes of mortality and morbidity in today’s world.