Abstract EP38: Women With Type 2 Diabetes Are 1.5 Times More Likely To Have Alzheimer’s Disease Than Men

Abstract

Introduction: Mounting evidence has suggested that diabetes mellitus (DM) is a risk factor for the development of dementia. However, whether the association of DM with dementia differs by sex remains unclear. Hypothesis: Almost two-thirds of Alzheimer's patients are women. We hypothesized that there might be a sex difference in the association between DM and dementia, and the effect of DM on the risk of dementia might be greater in women than in men. Methods: We used cohort data from UK Biobank, a large population-based prospective cohort study that recruited 502 649 individuals ages 40-69, between 2006 and 2010. Type 1 diabetes (T1DM), type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and all-cause dementia (including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VD)) were ascertained from hospital medical records. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the sex-specific hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), and women-to-men ratio of HRs (RHR) for the association between DM and incident dementia. Results: A total of 502 422 people (54.4% women) with no prevalent dementia at baseline were included. After 11 years (median) follow-up, 5652 participants (46.6% women) developed dementia. The crude incidence rates of all-cause dementia were 8.53 for women and 11.97 for men, per 10,000 person-years. Both T1DM and T2DM were associated with higher risk of all-cause dementia, AD and VD. After the analyses were stratified by sex, compared to people without DM, the HRs (95%CI) between T2DM and AD in women (HR: 3.06, 95% CI 2.48-3.79) were higher than the estimates in men (1.94, 1.62-2.33), with an RHR (95%CI) of 1.56 (1.20, 2.02) (Table 1). No sex difference was observed in association between T2DM and VD, or T1DM and dementia. Conclusions: There is a sex difference in the association between T2DM and dementia. Women with type 2 diabetes are 1.5 times more likely to experience AD than men.