Early childhood onset of type 1 diabetes (T1D) is associated with poorer cognition. Yet, the contribution of glycemic control to poorer cognition is unclear. We examined the association between glycemic control and full-scale intelligence quotient (FSIQ) in a cohort of children diagnosed with T1D before age 3 followed over 30 years. We recruited children presenting to a tertiary hospital in Australia from 1990-1992 in the prospective Cognition and Longitudinal Assessment of Risk Factors over 30 Years (CLARiFY) cohort study. Those with T1D underwent a cognitive test series at entry and 2, 6, 12 and 30 years post-diagnosis. Linear mixed effects modelling examined associations between HbA1c mean and coefficient of variation and FSIQ over time. Data were available for 12 subjects (6 male). The mean diabetes diagnosis age was 1.9 years. The mean HbA1c at each time of 2, 6, 12 and 30 years was 7.9, 8.3, 8.4 and 8.7%, respectively (Fig.1 shows HbA1c plots across time for each subject). We did not find an association between mean HbA1c (β=-3.2, p=0.09) nor HbA1c coefficient of variability (β=23.2, p=0.34) and FSIQ. Future analyses with more data will further document the impact of lifetime glycemic control on IQ and other cognitive measures in later life. Future work will also examine the impact of diagnosis age and acute dysglycemic events on cognitive outcomes 30 years after diagnosis vs healthy controls.

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Disclosure

F.Cameron: None. C.Moran: None. A.Brown: None. R.Beare: None. O.Gbadeyan: None. S.A.Sakowski: None. V.Srikanth: None. E.L.Feldman: None. E.A.Northam: None.

Funding

National Institutes of Health (R01DK129320)

© 2023 by the American Diabetes Association
2023
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