Association of hemoglobin A1C with TDP-43 pathology: Supplemental materials

Objective. We tested the hypothesis that an inverse association exists between diabetes mellitus (DM) and hemoglobin A1C (A1C) with Transactive response DNA binding protein 43 (TDP-43) levels in older adults.

Methods. We leveraged antemortem and postmortem data of decedents from three community-based clinical-pathological studies. DM status, A1C levels, and medications for DM were documented annually. TDP-43 cytoplasmic inclusions, evaluated in 6 brain regions using immunohistochemistry, were used to obtain a semiquantitative TDP-43 score (0-5) in each region, and scores were averaged across regions to obtain a TDP-43 severity score. We used linear regressions to test the association of DM and A1C with the TDP-43 severity score.

Results. On average, participants (n=817) were 90 years old at the time of death, three fourth were women, and one fourth had DM. The mean A1C was 6.0% (SD=0.6). TDP-43 was observed in 54% of participants, and the mean TDP-43 score was 0.7 (range 0-4.5). A...