Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1417236
This article is part of the Research Topic Lifestyle and Healthy Aging to Prevent Cognitive Decline and Dementia View all 15 articles

Association between Elevated Glycosylated Hemoglobin and Cognitive Impairment in Older Korean Adults: 2009-2010 Ansan Cohort of the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study

Provisionally accepted
Jung Sook Kim Jung Sook Kim 1Byung Chul Chun Byung Chul Chun 2*Kyoungho Lee Kyoungho Lee 1*
  • 1 Korea National Institute of Health, Cheongju-si, Republic of Korea
  • 2 College of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: Cohort studies on the risk of cognitive impairment in the older population of S. Korea based on glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels are exceedingly rare. This study aimed to analyze the association between HbA1c levels and cognitive impairment in older Korean adults without dementia. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study using data from a community-based Ansan cohort (2009-2010), which was part of the Korea Genome Epidemiology Study. The study included 853 cohort participants aged ≥59 years living in Ansan city. Cognitive function was evaluated using the Korean version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). The MMSE and MoCA scores were categorized into normal cognition (≥24 and ≥23, respectively) and cognitive impairment (≤23 and ≤22, respectively). Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the association between HbA1c levels and cognitive impairment, with adjustments for covariates.The mean age of the participants was 66 years, and 433 (50.8%) were female.Cognitive impairment was observed in 12.5% and 44.3% of participants, based on the MMSE and MoCA, respectively. Regarding the MMSE scores, HbA1c level was a risk factor for cognitive impairment in women. Compared to normal HbA1c (≤5.6%) levels, adjusted odds ratios of MMSE decline for HbA1c 5.7-6.4% and HbA1c ≥6.5% were high: 2.16 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04-4.49) and 2.96 (95% CI, 1.04-8.39), respectively. Conclusions: By improving glycemic control, the risk of cognitive impairment in the older population can be reduced. Further research on the role of sex differences in cognitive impairment is needed.

    Keywords: older people, Korean version of the Mini-Mental State Examination, Korean version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, cognitive impairment, Glycosylated hemoglobin

    Received: 29 Apr 2024; Accepted: 09 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kim, Chun and Lee. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Byung Chul Chun, College of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
    Kyoungho Lee, Korea National Institute of Health, Cheongju-si, Republic of Korea

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.