Researchers discover that diabetes patients develop dementia earlier than other people, but because they also tend to die at a younger age, they do not generally endure dementia for a sustained period of time.

Corresponding with previous research, researchers found that 1286 Type 2 diabetes patients from the Fremantle Diabetes Study had a dementia incidence rate ratio of 1.28 relative to 5132 matched community controls, equating to an ammended hazard ratio of 1.51.

However,, diabetes patients have an increased mortality risk, and accounting for this competing danger reduced the hazard ratio for dementia to just 1.18, although that ratio remained significant.

Overall, diabetic patients developed dementia 1.7 years earlier than non diabetics, but diabetics also died an average of 2.3 years earlier, noted David Bruce of the University of Western Australia, Fremantle and his co-researchers.

The finding illustrates how “the competing event of death may obscure the potential risk of dementia had death been avoided”, they observe.

Dr Tom Russ, of the Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre at Edinburgh University, said high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, smoking, lack of exercise and low educational attainment had all been linked to dementia.

So if you have diabetes, it might be prudent to quit smoking, eat a healthy diet and embrace an exercise routine. Not only will such lifestyle changes improve your diabetes symptoms, they will also help reduce your risk of developing dementia.