PEOPLE with diabetes could be at a 53 per cent higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, compared to those living without the metabolic disorder, a review of studies has found. Researchers, led by those from Australia’s Curtin University, conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 40 studies. They found that if 1,000 people living with type 2 diabetes were followed for a year, an estimated average of 4.7 would develop Alzheimer’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder in which memory and thought processes steadily decline with age. Cognitive risk prevention should be integrated into diabetes care, they said. “Individuals with T2D (type 2 diabetes) experienced approximately five AD (Alzheimer’s disease) cases per 1,000 personyears and a 53 per cent higher risk of AD, supporting the rationale for integrating cognitive risk prevention into diabetes care,” the authors wrote in the study published in the journal Alzheimer’s Research and Therapy.

 

Study author Emmanuel Adewuyi, an investigator fellow at Curtin University’s school of population health, said the review was important as it quantifies the relative risk and incidence of Alzheimer’s in people living with type 2 diabetes. “While many earlier reviews combined different types of diabetes or dementia, this review focused specifically on type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease and estimated how often new cases occurred,” Adewuyi said. “Relative risk tells us how two groups compare, while incidence tells us how often new cases occur: putting those numbers together gives us a clearer picture of the burden of Alzheimer’s disease among people living with type 2 diabetes,” the author said. Databases including MEDLINE, CINAHL and Embase were searched from for publications since inception until April 2026. Forty studies, involving 27,102,559 data points, and looking at the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease among people with diabetes or link between the two disorders were analysed.