Impact of diabetes on the accuracy and speed of accessing information from episodic and working memory

Abstract

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of diabetes on episodic memory and working memory after controlling for other comorbidities and several demographic and biological variables. We conducted a cross-sectional study with 1656 participants. From this sample, 100 were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus. This group was compared with participants without diabetes matched by age, education and sex. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that after controlling for demographic variables (age, sex, years of education, vocabulary scores, Mini-Mental State Exam scores and Beck Depression Inventory scores) and biological variables (body mass index, glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, heart rate, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure), the diabetes status significantly predicted recollection (β = .62), recognition (β = .28), verbal working memory in low (β = .39) and high (β = .29) difficulty tasks, spatial working memory in low (β = .32) and high (β = .38) difficulty tasks, and speed in verbal high difficulty tasks (β = −.33) and spatial low difficulty (β = −.30) working memory tasks. The most essential memory processes for autonomous everyday living are widely affected in diabetic individuals free from other comorbidities despite the administration of glycemic medication.

Keywords

• diabetes type 2
• recollection
• episodic memory
• working memory