The relationship between cognitive function and having diabetes in patients treated with hemodialysis.

The cross-sectional design cannot show that diabetes caused cognitive impairment or that controlling blood glucose would reduce risk. Participants were a convenience sample from two blood purification centers in China, so the results may not apply to other dialysis populations. Diabetes was based on self-report checked against records, not confirmed with blood testing. Cognitive impairment was assessed only with MoCA testing and lacked imaging evidence. Patients with dementia, Parkinson's disease, mental illness, severe health conditions, or vision, hearing, language, or comprehension impairments were excluded, so the study does not address those groups. The adjusted analysis for global cognitive impairment was not significant, so the association was not consistent across all cognitive outcomes.

The study was partly supported by the Nanjing Medical Science and Technology Development Foundation. The funder did not contribute to study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or manuscript preparation. The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Do not conclude that diabetes causes cognitive impairment or that better glucose control will prevent it. This was a cross-sectional association study, and after adjustment diabetes did not independently predict global cognitive impairment.