Association of serum levels of methylglyoxal and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate with cognitive function in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

WU Suzhen; ZHAO Jianrong; ZHAO Chen

doi:10.3969/j.issn.2095-3402.2018.02.017

Abstract：Objective To investigate the correlations between serum levels of methylglyoxal (MGO) and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S) and cognitive function in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods One hundred and sixteen cases of elderly T2DM patients (observation group) and another 60 normal elderly patients (control group) who were in the Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University in the same period between January 2014 to January 2017 were selected as the subjects. The clinical data, such as sex, age, body mass index, serum MGO, DHEA-S levels and cognitive function, were recorded before the correlations between serum MGO and DHEA-S and cognitive function were analyzed. Results DHEA-S levels and scores of immediate memory, breadth of vision, attention span and delayed memory in the observation group were significantly lower or poorer than those of the normal group, while the level of MGO in the observation group with T2DM was significantly higher (P<0.05). The Spearman rank correlation analysis confirmed that MGO and DHEA-S were closely related to RBANS. MGO and RBANS were negatively related to scores of immediate memory, visual range, attention span, and delayed memory, while DHEA-S was positively correlated with the above indicators (P<0.05). Conclusion The levels of MGO and DHEA-S in elderly patients with T2DM are significantly increased and decreased respectively. MGO and DHEA-S are negatively and positively correlated with cognitive function in elderly patients with T2DM respectively, so the two indicators can be used to assess the cognitive function of elderly patients with T2DM.