Dementia is a devastating age-related condition with significant societal and clinical consequences. At the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) 2025, a nationwide Swedish cohort study investigated all-cause dementia risk in individuals with type 1 diabetes. 

The study included 43,440 individuals with type 1 diabetes from the Swedish National Diabetes Register and 217,109 age-, sex-, and county-matched controls from the Swedish general population. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to examine the risk of all-cause dementia and dementia subtypes, including Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and non-Alzheimer’s-non-vascular dementia. 

Over a median follow-up of 14.3 years, dementia was recorded in 530 individuals with type 1 diabetes (1.2%) and in 1,867 matched controls (0.9%). Individuals with type 1 diabetes had a two-fold increased risk of all-cause dementia, a 38 percent higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and a 3.7-fold higher risk of vascular dementia compared to controls. Factors associated with higher dementia risk included older age, lower education, higher systolic blood pressure, elevated glycated hemoglobin, history of cardiovascular disease or stroke, and longer diabetes duration, highlighting the multifactorial nature of dementia risk in type 1 diabetes.