Home
You can view the current or previous issues of Diabetes Health online, in their entirety, anytime you want.
Click Here To View
See if you qualify for our free healthcare professional magazines. Click here to start your application for Pre-Diabetes Health, Diabetes Health Pharmacist and Diabetes Health Professional.
Latest Diabetes Articles
Popular Diabetes Articles
Highly Recommended Diabetes Articles
Email to a Friend
Send a link to this page to your friends and colleagues.
This is Your Brain on Insulin
The findings support the idea that Alzheimer's might be a type of diabetes.
Remember that public service advertisement that showed a frying egg and then announced, "This is your brain on drugs"? Well, now American researchers think that insulin might be able to shield that brain from the ravages of Alzheimer's disease.
In fact, some researchers believe that Alzheimer's may be a type of diabetes and are calling it a "third form" or "type 3" (which may lead to a bit of confusion because type 1.5 (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adults or LADA) is sometimes called a third form of diabetes).
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at Northwestern University said that Avandia (GlaxoSmithKline's version of rosiglitazone), which increases sensitivity to insulin, seemed to enhance insulin's protective effect. William Klein, one of the study authors, said in a Reuters article, "Our results demonstrate that bolstering insulin signaling can protect neurons from harm."
Klein said the findings support the new idea that Alzheimer's is a type of diabetes of the brain. "In type 1 diabetes, your pancreas isn't making insulin. In type 2 diabetes, your tissues are insensitive to insulin because of problems in the insulin receptor. Type 3 is where that insulin receptor problem is localized in the brain," Klein told Reuters.
In some people, this can occur with age, Klein said. "As you get older, some individuals start to have less effective insulin signaling, including in the brain," he said, making the brain more vulnerable to toxins that cause Alzheimer's disease.
Klein and other reseachers have theorized that short strands of the proteins known as ADDLs attack memory-forming brain cells, causing the memory loss that Alzheimer's patients experience. Several studies have found that people with diabetes have a higher risk of getting Alzheimer's than people without diabetes.
Klein found that when nerve cells were treated with insulin, the effects of the ADDLs were blocked. The effect was increased when the researchers added the diabetes drug rosiglitazone, which increases insulin sensitivity.
The researchers were quick to point out that the same things that help people with diabetes control their disease-diet and exercise-also are important in combating Alzheimer's.
Source: Reuters Health
Categories: Diabetes, Diabetes, Geriatrics, Insulin, Research, Type 1 Issues, Type 2 Issues
You May Also Be Interested In...
-
Diabetes Health
Diabetes Health is the essential resource for people living with diabetes- both newly diagnosed and experienced as well as the professionals who care for them. We provide balanced expert news and information on living healthfully with diabetes. Each issue includes cutting-edge editorial coverage of new products, research, treatment options, and meaningful lifestyle issues.
-
Topics
- Diabetic / Diabetes Health
- Type 1 / 1.5 Diabetes
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Blood Glucose / Sugar
- High/Low Blood Sugar / Fast Acting Glucose
- Insulin- Pumps, Pens & Syringes
- Continuous Glucose Monitors, CGM, Infusion Sets
- Type 2 Medications
- Hyperglycemia
- Hypoglycemia
Comments
1st I'd like to say "TOXINS build when a diabetic person develops KETONES" (see copy below of paragraph from your article) KETONES do develop in people with diabetes when they DO NOT keep their blood sugar within the "normal blood sugar range" (normal is like a non-diabetic person's blood sugar range 3.3- 4.8 possibly 5.0 before eating, after eating up to 7.0 - 7.5 possibly 8.0) so as NOT to delvelop KETONES. Paragraph from your article: As you get older, some individuals start to have less effective insulin signaling, including in the brain," he said, making the brain more vulnerable to toxins that cause Alzheimer's disease. My comments again: I believe that ALL diabetic people are better off being in the normal blood sugar ranges (3.3 - 4.8 prior to eating, possibly 5.0 & after eating up to 7.0 - 7.5) to avoid ALL diabetic complications! I personally believe that one who has too many HIGH blood sugars is going to be the one who pays for it (with blindness, amputations, kidney failure, or heart problems). I know & have known & seen many people go through these problems. Many have died & the death IS NOT non-painful! I cannot stress enough to keep one's blood sugar in the non-diabetic blood sugar ranges to avoid those complications!
Add your comments about this article below. You can add comments as a registered user or anonymously. If you choose to post anonymously your comments will be sent to our moderator for approval before they appear on this page. If you choose to post as a registered user your comments will appear instantly.
When voicing your views via the comment feature, please respect the Diabetes Health community by refraining from comments that could be considered offensive to other people. Diabetes Health reserves the right to remove comments when necessary to maintain the cordial voice of the diabetes community.
For your privacy and protection, we ask that you do not include personal details such as address or telephone number in any comments posted.
Don't have your Diabetes Health Username? Register now and add your comments to all our content.
Register...
Register your Diabetes Health Username here.
Have Your Say...