ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Neurodegeneration
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1620118
This article is part of the Research TopicBiomarkers for the identification of effective treatments for neurodegenerative diseaseView all articles
A high triglyceride-glucose index correlates with cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease：a cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
Yongqing Cheng1
Shuangfei You1Xin Wang1Yingchao Ge2Lei Li1Taojie Ren1Songjie Chen1Guojun He1*Shouru Xue3*- 1The First People’s Hospital of Yancheng, Yancheng, China
- 2Qidong Hospital Affiliated to Nantong University, Nantong, China
- 3The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China
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Background: Insulin resistance (IR) is proved be involved in the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease (PD). As an effective surrogate marker of IR, the correlation between the triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index and PD remains unclear. This cross-sectional study aimed to explore the association between the TyG index and cognitive impairment in PD (PDCI).Methods: Patients with sporadic PD were consecutively enrolled between May 2022 and October 2023. The cognitive function was evaluated using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). The Spearman correlation analysis was used to evaluate the correlation between TyG index and MoCA score, Unified-Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) III and peripheral blood oxidative stress markers, respectively. Logistic regression analysis was performed to explore the correlation between TyG and PDCI and dementia in PD (PDD). Results: A total of 78 patients were enrolled, of whom 50 (64.1%) were diagnosed with PDCI (26 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 24 with PDD). The TyG index in patients with dementia and MCI were higher than those with normal cognition (9.32±0.43 vs. 8.90±0.47 vs. 8.51±0.46, P<0.001). The Spearman correlation analysis demonstrated that TyG was negatively correlated with MoCA (r=-0.704, P<0.001) and superoxide dismutase (r=-0.244, P=0.031), but positively correlated with UPDRS III (r=0.246, P=0.030). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that TyG was independently associated with PDCI regardless of whether it was used as a continuous variable (OR=6.177, 95%CI=1.590-24.000) or a tertile variable (OR=5.478,). This association persisted after excluding patients with diabetes. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis suggested that the area under the curve (AUC) of TyG for predicting PDCI was 0.805 (95% CI=0.707-0.903, P<0.001).Elevated TyG levels were associated with an increased likelihood of PDCI in patients with PD.
Keywords: Triglyceride-glucose index, Insulin Resistance, Cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease, biomarker, predictor
Received: 29 Apr 2025; Accepted: 14 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cheng, You, Wang, Ge, Li, Ren, Chen, He and Xue. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Guojun He, The First People’s Hospital of Yancheng, Yancheng, China
Shouru Xue, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China
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