You’ve heard that diabetes damages the heart, eyes and kidneys, but new research indicates a link more disturbing is that diabetes increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Doctors always suspected that diabetes damages the blood vessels supplying the brain and the damage can start now before someone is diagnosed with diabetes, which is when the body is gradually losing its ability to regulate blood sugar.
In fact, they are blurring the lines between what specialists call “vascular dementia” and fearsome classical Alzheimer’s disease, and whatever its label, there is no reason to protect your brain by combating diabetes and heart-related risks.
“We can not do much about the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease,” the plaques that clog the brains patients, says Dr. Yaakov Stern, a specialist in Alzheimer’s disease Medical Center Columbia University.
But “if you could control these vascular conditions, it may slow the course of the disease.”
The link is amazing social impact, since more than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease and cases are expected to be even more will shoot in the next two decades as the population ages.
The question is to what extent obesity simultaneously feeds the epidemic of type 2 diabetes and can worsen this progress.
Tags: Alzheimer's disease, Diabetes, Heart-related risks, Obesity, Pathology,
