The insulin resistance by triglyceride glucose index and risk for dementia: population-based study

BACKGROUND: Insulin resistance is suggested to have negative effects on cognition; however, results from large population studies are lacking. In this study, the potential relationships between the triglyceride glucose (TyG) index, a simple surrogate marker of insulin resistance, and dementia were evaluated using a large-scale population dataset. METHODS: This was a retrospective, observational, cohort study using data from the National Health Information Database from 2009 to 2015 and included 5,586,048 participants 40 years age or older. The TyG index was used as a measure of insulin resistance, and participants were divided into quartiles based on TyG index. The incidence of dementia was assessed using hazard ratios (HRs) estimated with Cox proportional hazard modeling. RESULTS: During a median follow-up of 7.21 years, dementia was diagnosed in 142,714 (2.55%) participants. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VD) were diagnosed in 74.3% and 12.5% of the participants. Multivariate-adjusted HRs for patients in the TyG index 4th quartile were higher for dementia (HRs = 1.14; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.12–1.16), AD (HRs = 1.12; 95% CI 1.09–1.14), and VD (HRs = 1.18; 95% CI 1.12–1.23) compared with the 1st quartile of TyG index; however, this had a small effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.10, 0.08, and 0.13, respectively). These effects were independent of age, sex, smoking status, physical activity, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, and total cholesterol. CONCLUSION: In this large population study, TyG index was associated with an increased risk of dementia, including AD and VD, that was independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors, although the effect size of the TyG index was small. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13195-020-00758-4.