Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will commission or conduct research on the links between diabetes and early dementia.

Researchers at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health published findings in 2010 in the British Journal of Psychiatry that diabetes mellitus increases not only the risks of dementia and mild cognitive impairment but also the risk of progression from such impairment to dementia.

The NIHR is currently investing nearly £0.3 million in systematic reviews of interventions which target modifiable risk factors for dementia. This evidence synthesis will encompass vascular risk factors such as diabetes.