We have long heard – and written here – that diabetes is pretty overwhelming and insidious and can all but destroy your vision, your kidneys, circulation and more. We’ve even heard about a possible link to Alzheimer’s disease. Doctors have discovered more information regarding the link between Alzheimer’s and diabetes, as well as the possible speeding up of dementia.

Doctors long suspected diabetes damaged blood vessels that supply the brain. It now seems even more serious than thought before, that the damage may start before someone is diagnosed with full-blown diabetes, when the body is beginning to lose its ability to regulate blood sugar.

Alzheimer’s and dementia are both a little different, however, they are both affected by diabetes and it is important to do what is necessary to keep an eye on your diabetes and have your doctor be aware of both.

“Right now, we can’t do much about the Alzheimer’s disease pathology,” those sticky plaques that clog patients’ brains, says Dr. Yaakov Stern, an Alzheimer’s specialist at Columbia University Medical Center. But, “if you could control these vascular conditions, you might slow the course of the disease.”

More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, and cases already are projected to skyrocket in the next two decades as the population ages. The question is how much the simultaneous obesity-fueled epidemic of Type 2 diabetes may worsen that toll. In addition how will it be possible to treat and help the millions of people that will end up with the disease.

There are about 18 million people with Type 2 diabetes who are considered to have at least two to three
times a nondiabetic’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Still, Type 2 diabetes often leads to heart disease and other conditions that kill before Alzheimer’s typically strikes, in the 70s.

If you have diabetes, this is not a sure thing and you may never end up with dementia, stresses Dr. Ralph Nixon of New York University, vice chairman of the Alzheimer’s Association’s scientific advisory council. Dr. Nixion has made it clear that the prime risk factor for dementia are genetics.

“It by no means means that you’re going to develop Alzheimer’s disease, and certainly many people with Alzheimer’s don’t have diabetes,” he said.

The latest research strengthens the link, and scientists are researching diabetes and its relation to Alzheimer’s .
Some of the findings include the fact that brain functioning subtly slows as Type 2 diabetics’ blood-sugar rises, most often a long time before people have any obvious memory problems.

In a major national study, doctors gave a battery of cognitive tests to nearly 3,000 indiiduals with diabetes. For every 1 percentage point increase in their A1C score — an average of glucose control over a few months there were small but meaningful drops in memory, the ability to multitask, and other cognitive tasks. Wake Forest University scientists documented the findings last month in the Journal of Diabetes Care.

At Columbia, Stern is co-directing a a historical, critical and powerful study. Hundreds of aging New York City residents have agreed to regular testing while they were still healthy. They are allowing scientists to determine the very earliest signs of dementia. Stern tracked yearly changes in 156 who developed Alzheimer’s, and found that those who had a history of diabetes and high cholesterol worsened faster. His findings are reported in a special issue of Archives of Neurology dedicated to the Alzheimer’s-Diabetes link.

Type 2 diabetes occurs as a result of insulin resistance, as the body gradually loses sensitivity to this hormone that’s essential for turning blood sugar into energy. There is a similar effect in the brain which helps explain the dementia link, Dr. Suzanne Craft of the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System concludes in a research review also published in that journal.

There are other factors — such as brain inflammation and cell-damaging oxidative stress — that can play a role, too. More affected is a dysfunction of glucose control that is not obvious and that does not suddenly begin after diabetes is diagnosed, in fact, as some of the other issues we have discussed, this is another issue that is quiet and insidious as it progresses.

If you have diabetes, closely follow your doctor”s advice for controlling it.
Try to lower high cholesterol and blood pressure that can harm the brain”s blood supply.
Eat a healthful diet and get plenty of exercise. See your doctor regularly and keep track of your symptoms.

Some information is quoted from The Associated Press.