The association of antidiabetic medications and Mini-Mental State Examination scores in patients with diabetes and dementia

BACKGROUND: The effect of antidiabetic medication on cognitive function is unclear. We analyzed the association between five antidiabetic drugs and change in Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores in patients with diabetes and dementia. METHODS: Using the Swedish Dementia Registry and four supplementary Swedish registers/databases, we identified 1873 patients (4732 observations) with diagnosis of type 2 diabetes (diabetes) and Alzheimer’s disease or mixed-pathology dementia who were followed up at least once after dementia diagnosis. Use of metformin, insulin, sulfonylurea, thiazolidinediones (TZD), and dipeptidyl-peptidase-4 inhibitors (DPP-4i) was identified at baseline. Prevalent-user, incident-user, and drug-drug cohorts were sampled, and propensity-score matching was used to analyze comparable subjects. Beta coefficients with 95% confidence intervals (CI) from the random intercept and slope linear mixed-effects models determined the association between the use of antidiabetic medications and decline in MMSE score points between the follow-ups. Inverse-probability weighting was used to account for patient dropout. RESULTS: Compared to non-users, prevalent users of metformin (beta 0.89, 95% CI 0.44; 1.33) and DPP-4i (0.72, 0.06; 1.37) experienced a slower cognitive decline with time. Secondly, compared to DPP-4i, the use of insulin (−1.00, −1.95; −0.04) and sulfonylureas (−1.19; −2.33; −0.04) was associated with larger point-wise decrements in MMSE with annual intervals. CONCLUSIONS: In this large cohort of patients with diabetes and dementia, the use of metformin and DPP-4i was associated with a slower decline in MMSE scores. Further examination of the cognitive effects of metformin and incretin-based medications is warranted. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13195-021-00934-0.