Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Ramadan is the 9th month of the Muslim calendar, where people fast from the sunrise to the sunset. Despite medical recommendations, 100 million Muslims in the world with diabetes and 79% of patients with type 2 diabetes fast during Ramadan.

The aim of our study is to determine the impact of fasting during Ramadan on the cognitive performances for patients with type 2 diabetes using two fast tests.

Materials and methods: Patients voluntarily accepted to participate to this study. The socio demographical and metabolical characteristics were collected. The evaluation of the neurocognitive performances was obtained using two tests: Digit Span test which explores the short-term memory and Cancellation test which explores the Visio spatial component. Patients were explored before, during and after Ramadan. The results obtained were analyzed by ANOVA one factor.

Results: The study concerned 16 type 2 diabetic patients. Females represent 66.7% and mean age was 55.8±14.73. The mean duration of diabetes was 5.06±4.02 years. The mean HbA1c was 7.52%. The means of Digit Span test were 5.26 before Ramadan, 5.80 during Ramadan, and 5.13 after Ramadan. The comparison by repetitive measures did not show any difference between the three means. Concerning the Cancellation task test, the comparison showed a significant difference in the time response and the scores of the tests between the measures during Ramadan (P=0.029) and those after Ramadan (P=0.015).

Discussion: These results show that fasting could impact the spatial recognition in type 2 diabetic patients. However, the evaluation of the short-term memory does not show any difference between the three periods. We suggest that the difference in the response time in our patients could be explained by the decrease in the neuronal activity, secondary to the alteration of the carbohydrates intake cycle. This suggests the importance of the regularity of the food intake in the conservation of an appropriate cognitive functioning. However, this difference in results of the two tests shows the complexity of the neurocognitive processes. Thus, they represent an interesting way to explore it.