Diabetes Doubles Risk of Dementia, Alzheimer’s
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A study on the relationship between diabetes and dementia reveals that diabetes appears to double a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias.
A study published in the September 20 issue of Neurology showed that people with diabetes were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia, such as vascular dementia, which occurs when there is damage to blood vessels that deliver oxygen to the brain.
Researchers studied more than 1,000 people who were age 60 and older and given a glucose (sugar) tolerance test after an overnight fast to determine if they had diabetes. Study participants were monitored for an average of 11 years and then tested for cognitive impairments. During the study, 232 people eventually developed dementia.
The study found that people with diabetes were twice as likely to develop dementia as people with normal blood sugar levels. Of the 150 people with diabetes, 41 had developed dementia, compared to 115 of the 559 people without diabetes who developed dementia.
Diabetes is an epidemic. But the worse epidemic is obesity, which many times leads to this disease.
