Objective: To explore the effect of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) on the development of neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in early Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Methods: From September 2017 to March 2019, a cross-sectional study was conducted on the clinical data of 158 early AD patients over 65 years old in the Department of Neurology of Daping Hospital. All early stage of AD patients were divided into early stage of AD with NPS group and early stage of AD without NPS group according to the presence or absence of NPS. Clinical data of age, sex, body mass index (BMI), smoking and alcohol consumption, history of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, white matter leisure (WML) and T2DM, MMSE, CDR and NPI-Q scores were collected. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the relationship between T2DM and NPS in early AD.
Results: Compared with the early stage of AD group without NPS, the early stage of AD group with NPS was older, the proportion of women was higher, the proportion of T2DM, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and WML was higher, and the MMSE score was lower (P< 0.05). T2DM was an independent risk factor for NPS in early stage of AD patients (OR 3.48, 95% CI 2.91– 3.84). The incidence of T2DM in AD patients with depression, anxiety, nighttime behavioral disturbances, and appetite disturbances was significantly higher than in AD patients without these symptoms. T2DM was an independent risk factor of depression (OR 2.04, 95% CI 1.71– 2.38), anxiety (OR 1.69, 95% CI 1.38– 1.97), nighttime behavioral disturbances (OR 1.95, 95% CI 1.75– 2.13) and appetite disturbances (OR 1.62, 95% CI 1.33– 1.94) in early AD patients.
Conclusion: T2DM was an important independent risk factor for NPS in early AD, which promotes the occurrence of depression, anxiety, nighttime behavioral disturbances and appetite disturbances in early AD.
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, type 2 diabetes, neuropsychiatric symptoms