Age at type 1 diabetes onset does not influence attained brain volume.

Introduction: Type 1 diabetes is suspected to hamper brain growth, implying that people with earlier diabetes onset would, on average, achieve lower maximal brain volume. We set out to test this hypothesis.

Methods: Examining brain MRI scans of middle-aged people with type 1 diabetes, we related age at diabetes onset to intracranial volume in 180 participants, as well as to cerebral gray and white matter volumes in a subset of 113 (63%) participants, using fractional polynomial regression models. Of the participants, 118 (67%) had been diagnosed with diabetes before 18 years of age.

Results: Of our participants, 54% were women, the median age 40.0 (IQR 33.2-45.0) years and the range of age at diabetes onset was 1.2-39.0 years. We found no association between age at diabetes onset and intracranial volume (p = 0.85), cerebral white (p = 0.10), or gray matter volumes (p = 0.12). Further, correlations between age at diabetes onset and the measured brain volumes were poor in analyses stratified for sex (all correlation coefficients ρ ≤ 0.16).

Conclusions: We found no association between age at diabetes onset and attained intracranial volume or gray or white matter volumes, indicating that type 1 diabetes may not have a clinically significant influence on brain growth.