A diabetes drug, pioglitazone, may help people with type 2 diabetes lower their risk of later developing dementia, a new study has found.
- Patients with type 2 diabetes taking pioglitazone were 16% less likely to develop dementia than those not taking it.
- The risk was further reduced the longer they took the drug: up to 37% for 4 years of treatment.
- However, pioglitazone might cause some side effects and more research needs to be done to confirm these results.
People with diabetes are twice as likely to develop dementia as those without. Fortunately, according to a new study published in the February 15, 2023 online issue of the journal Neurologya diabetes drug, pioglitazone, may help patients reduce their risk of later developing dementia.
Dementia: 16 to 37% lower risk in diabetics
During the study, 8.3% of people with type 2 diabetes taking pioglitazone developed dementia, compared with 10.0% of those not taking the drug. After controlling for other factors that may affect dementia risk, such as high blood pressure, smoking and physical activity, researchers found that people taking pioglitazone were actually 16% less more likely to develop the disease than those who did not take it. The benefit was greater in people with a history of ischemic heart disease (a condition caused by narrowing of the arteries in the heart) or stroke, with reduced risks of 54% and 43%.
The risk was reduced increasingly as participants took the drug for longer periods of time. People who took it for four years were 37% less likely to develop dementia, while those who took it for one to two years were 22% less likely. To get these results, the researchers looked at Korea’s National Health Database of people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes who did not have dementia. They were followed for an average of 10 years. Of the 91,218 participants, 3,467 received the drug pioglitazone.
“Given that dementia develops for years before diagnosis, there may be an opportunity to intervene before it progresses. These results may suggest that we could use a personalized approach to prevent dementia in people with diabetes if they have a history of ischemic heart disease or stroke”said study author Eosu Kim, a researcher at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, in a communicated.
Pioglitazone: what are the side effects of the drug?
However, Eosu Kim observed that pioglitazone could cause some side effects: swelling, weight gain, bone loss, and congestive heart failure. More research is therefore needed, he says, into the long-term safety of the drug and whether there is an optimal dose that could minimize side effects while maintaining benefits.
A limitation of the study was that the drug information was based on insurance claims, so some people may not have taken the drugs as prescribed. Also, remember that the study does not prove that the drug reduces the risk of dementia in people with diabetes, although it does show a significant association. Note that in previous studies of people with dementia or at risk of cognitive decline who did not have diabetes, pioglitazone showed no protection against dementia. Further research is therefore still needed to confirm these findings.