After a five to six year follow-up period, comparison of the plasma HSP 70 and HSP 27 levels of the two groups revealed that only the plasma HSP 70 level was associated with a conversion to MCI after adjustments for age, gender, years of education, follow-up duration, APOE e4, hypertension, and diabetes (repeated measure analysis of variance: F = 7.59, p = 0.008). The gene discussed is APOE; the disease is diabetes mellitus.