Background: Older diabetic patients are more likely to be frail than those\nwho do not have diabetes. Frailty is an important risk factor for both mortality\nand disability in older patients with type 2 diabetes. However, the\nmechanism of frailty in diabetes mellitus is not fully understood. Aims: The\naim of this study was to identify the prevalence of frailty and associated\nfactors in older patients with type 2 diabetes in Japan. Methods: A\ncross-sectional study was conducted with a total of 178 outpatients who\nwere over 65 years old with type 2 diabetes. We used the Obu Study Health\nPromotion for the Elderly definition of frailty to divided subjects into a\nnon-frail and a frail group. We investigated the association between frailty\nand various patient characteristics. Results: In the study, 21.4% of the older\npatients with type 2 diabetes were considered frail. There were no significant\ndifferences in the duration of diabetes, BMI, proportion of microvascular\ncomplications, or HbA1c values between the frail and non-frail group.\nHowever, serum albumin and IGF-1 levels were lower in the frail group\nthan the non-frail group as were the Mini-Mental State Examination scores.\nThe frail group had a higher number of medications than the non-frail\ngroup. In a multivariable analysis, frailty was positively associated with the\nnumber of medications and, lower levels of both serum albumin and IGF-1.\nConclusion: Our study suggests that diabetes accelerates the aging process\nand frailty is associated with low albumin, polypharmacy and low levels of\nIGF-1.
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