The Risk Factors of Severe Hypoglycemia in Older Patients with Dementia and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Frequent hypoglycemia during hemodialysis in ESRD patients leads to higher risk of death

OBJECTIVE

With the increase of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), most of are receiving hemodialysis, hypoglycemia is a frequent occurrence in ESRD patients due to alterations in glucose and insulin metabolism. The purpose of our study was to explore the correlation between hypoglycemia and long-term survival in patients with ESRD during hemodialysis.

METHODS

Using the database of Hemodialysis Center in Taizhou Second People's Hospital, 268 ESRD patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) for more than 3 months between January 1, 2019 and September 30, 2023 were enrolled. Basic information, laboratory tests and treatment conditions of patients were collected. We analyzed the impact of hypoglycemia during hemodialysis on survival rate, and explored whether hypoglycemia is an independent risk factor for mortality in MHD patients.

RESULTS

We found that factors such as BMI, smoking, and alcohol consumption didn't affect survival rate in ESRD patients, while all-cause mortality was higher in ESRD patients with diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cerebrovascular disease and experienced hypoglycemia during hemodialysis (p < 0.05). We also observed that almost all ESRD patients with diabetes experienced hypoglycemia during dialysis, and 87.5% experienced ≥3 times, while this phenomenon was hardly observed in nondiabetic ESRD patients. Cox proportional hazards model analysis found that, frequent hypoglycemia (≥3 times) was associated with higher mortality risk in ESRD patients (p = 0.041), adjusted hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) 3.998 (2.462-6.492).

CONCLUSIONS

Occurrence of hypoglycemia during dialysis was associated with a higher risk of death, frequent hypoglycemia (≥3 times) was an independent risk factor for death in MHD patients.

Prescription patterns and the cost of antihyperglycemic drugs in patients with diabetes mellitus in Iran from 2014 to 2019

INTRODUCTION

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is characterized by high blood glucose levels and abnormalities in metabolism. In 2021, 15.14% of adult Iranians had DM. The purpose of this study is to provide policymakers with actionable insights to enhance resource allocation and improve diabetes care by evaluating the prescription patterns and costs of antidiabetic medications in Iran from 2014 to 2019 in 2.5 million patients.

METHODS

This descriptive-analytical study used data from Iran's Health Insurance prescriptions database, analyzing approximately 2.5 million diabetic patients from 2014 to 2019. Data included drug types, frequencies, costs, and patient demographics.

RESULTS

The analysis covered 20,233,608 prescriptions. Biguanides, sulfonylureas, and Insulin were the most commonly prescribed medications. Moreover, the 40-64 age group had the highest cost. Prescription patterns varied by age, with insulin in younger patients and Metformin in older ones. General practitioners, internal medicine specialists, and endocrinologists were the primary prescribers of anti-diabetic medications. Insulin Aspart incurred the highest costs, followed by Insulin glargine and metformin. The cost of females' antidiabetic medications was 1.66 times higher than those of males.

CONCLUSION

Insulin was the primary cost driver for antihyperglycemic medications. These cost disparities and variations in prescription patterns underscore the need for targeted interventions to improve diabetes care and manage resources effectively.

Risk factors and prediction of hypoglycaemia using the Hypo-RESOLVE cohort: a secondary analysis of pooled data from insulin clinical trials

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS

The objective of the Hypoglycaemia REdefining SOLutions for better liVES (Hypo-RESOLVE) project is to use a dataset of pooled clinical trials across pharmaceutical and device companies in people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes to examine factors associated with incident hypoglycaemia events and to quantify the prediction of these events.

METHODS

Data from 90 trials with 46,254 participants were pooled. Analyses were done for type 1 and type 2 diabetes separately. Poisson mixed models, adjusted for age, sex, diabetes duration and trial identifier were fitted to assess the association of clinical variables with hypoglycaemia event counts. Tree-based gradient-boosting algorithms (XGBoost) were fitted using training data and their predictive performance in terms of area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) evaluated on test data. Baseline models including age, sex and diabetes duration were compared with models that further included a score of hypoglycaemia in the first 6 weeks from study entry, and full models that included further clinical variables. The relative predictive importance of each covariate was assessed using XGBoost's importance procedure. Prediction across the entire trial duration for each trial (mean of 34.8 weeks for type 1 diabetes and 25.3 weeks for type 2 diabetes) was assessed.

RESULTS

For both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, variables associated with more frequent hypoglycaemia included female sex, white ethnicity, longer diabetes duration, treatment with human as opposed to analogue-only insulin, higher glucose variability, higher score for hypoglycaemia across the 6 week baseline period, lower BP, lower lipid levels and treatment with psychoactive drugs. Prediction of any hypoglycaemia event of any severity was greater than prediction of hypoglycaemia requiring assistance (level 3 hypoglycaemia), for which events were sparser. For prediction of level 1 or worse hypoglycaemia during the whole follow-up period, the AUC was 0.835 (95% CI 0.826, 0.844) in type 1 diabetes and 0.840 (95% CI 0.831, 0.848) in type 2 diabetes. For level 3 hypoglycaemia, the AUC was lower at 0.689 (95% CI 0.667, 0.712) for type 1 diabetes and 0.705 (95% CI 0.662, 0.748) for type 2 diabetes. Compared with the baseline models, almost all the improvement in prediction could be captured by the individual's hypoglycaemia history, glucose variability and blood glucose over a 6 week baseline period.

CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION

Although hypoglycaemia rates show large variation according to sociodemographic and clinical characteristics and treatment history, looking at a 6 week period of hypoglycaemia events and glucose measurements predicts future hypoglycaemia risk.

Medication-Related Hospital Admissions and Emergency Department Visits in Older People with Diabetes: A Systematic Review

Limited data are available regarding adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and medication-related hospitalisations or emergency department (ED) visits in older adults with diabetes, especially since the emergence of newer antidiabetic agents. This systematic review aimed to explore the nature of hospital admissions and ED visits that are medication-related in older adults with diabetes. The review was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines. Studies in English that reported on older adults (mean age ≥ 60 years) with diabetes admitted to the hospital or presenting to ED due to medication-related problems and published between January 2000 and October 2023 were identified using Medline, Embase, and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts databases. Thirty-five studies were included. Medication-related hospital admissions and ED visits were all reported as episodes of hypoglycaemia and were most frequently associated with insulins and sulfonylureas. The studies indicated a decline in hypoglycaemia-related hospitalisations or ED presentations in older adults with diabetes since 2015. However, the associated medications remain the same. This finding suggests that older patients on insulin or secretagogue agents should be closely monitored to prevent potential adverse events, and newer agents should be used whenever clinically appropriate.

Association between severe hypoglycaemia and risk of dementia in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A systematic review and meta-analysis

The aim of this systematic review was to analyse whether there is an association between severe hypoglycaemia and the incidence of dementia in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. We systematically searched the MEDLINE, Scopus, and Cochrane databases from their inception until September 2022 for observational studies on the association between hypoglycaemia and the risk of dementia. The DerSimonian and Laird method was used to compute a pooled estimate of the risk for such association. Risk ratio (RR) and its respective 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Two analyses were performed to estimate the risk of dementia: (i) any hypoglycaemia versus no hypoglycaemia and (ii) a dose-response analysis for one, two, or more than three hypoglycemic events versus no hypoglycaemia. PROSPERO registration number CRD42020219200. Seven studies were included. The pooled RR for the association of severe hypoglycaemia and risk of dementia was 1.47 (95% CI: 1.24-1.74). When the dose-response trend was analysed, the pooled RR for the risk of dementia was increased according to the hypoglycaemia events as follows: 1.29 (95% CI: 1.15-1.44) for one hypoglycemic event; 1.68 (95% CI: 1.38-2.04) for two hypoglycemic events; and 1.99 (95% CI: 1.48-2.68) for three or more hypoglycemic events. Our study demonstrates a 54% higher risk of dementia among people who suffer a hypoglycaemia event compared to nonhypoglycaemia. Considering our results and the prevalence of people suffering from diabetes mellitus, health education for both newly diagnosed and already diagnosed people could be a useful tool for glycaemic control, thus avoiding hypoglycaemic events.

Diabetes and cognitive function: An evidence-based current perspective

Several epidemiological studies have clearly identified diabetes mellitus (DM) as a major risk factor for cognitive dysfunction, and it is going to be a major public health issue in the coming years because of the alarming rise in diabetes prevalence across the world. Brain and neural tissues predominantly depend on glucose as energy substrate and hence, any alterations in carbohydrate meta-bolism can directly impact on cerebral functional output including cognition, executive capacity, and memory. DM affects neuronal function and mental capacity in several ways, some of which include hypoperfusion of the brain tissues from cerebrovascular disease, diabetes-related alterations of glucose transporters causing abnormalities in neuronal glucose uptake and metabolism, local hyper- and hypometabolism of brain areas from insulin resistance, and recurrent hypoglycemic episodes inherent to pharmacotherapy of diabetes resulting in neuronal damage. Cognitive decline can further worsen diabetes care as DM is a disease largely self-managed by patients. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the pathobiology of cognitive dysfunction in relation to DM and its management for optimal long-term care plan for patients. A thorough appraisal of normal metabolic characteristics of the brain, how alterations in neural metabolism affects cognition, the diagnostic algorithm for patients with diabetes and dementia, and the management and prognosis of patients when they have this dangerous combination of illnesses is imperative in this context. This evidence-based narrative with the back-up of latest clinical trial reviews elaborates the current understanding on diabetes and cognitive function to empower physicians to manage their patients in day-to-day clinical practice.