Aims Aim of the current study was to describe the prevalence, incidence, and severity of diabetes mellitus type 2 (T2D) in a cohort of older men and women aged 60 years and above over the course of on average 7 years, since longitudinal data on this topic are scarce for this age group in Germany.
Methods Baseline data of 1671 participants of the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II; 68.8 ± 3.7 years) and follow-up data assessed 7.4 ± 1.5 years later were analysed. The BASE-II is an exploratory, observational study on cross-sectional and longitudinal data of an older population. T2D was diagnosed based on self-report, antidiabetic medication use and laboratory parameters. T2D severity was determined by the diabetes complications severity index (DCSI). Prognostic capacity of laboratory parameters was evaluated.
Results The proportion of participants with T2D increased from 12.9% (37.3% women) at baseline to 17.1% (41.1% women) with 74 incident cases and 22.2% not being aware of the disease at follow-up. The incidence rate is 10.7 new T2D diagnoses per 1000 person-years. More than half of the 41 newly identified incident T2D cases were diagnosed solely by the 2 h-plasma glucose test (OGTT) and diagnosis based on OGTT as the only criterion among incident cases was found more frequently in women (p = 0.028). T2D severity expressed by the DCSI significantly increased from baseline to follow-up (mean DCSI 1.1 ± 1.2 vs. 2.0 ± 1.8; range 0–5 vs. 0–6). Cardiovascular complications had the highest impact (43.2% at baseline and 67.6% at follow-up).
Conclusions A comprehensive picture of T2D with respect to prevalence, incidence, and severity in older people of the Berlin Aging Study II is provided.
