Keeping Your Blood Sugar In Check Could Lower Your Alzheimer's Risk

Brain scientists are offering a new reason to control blood sugar levels: It might help lower your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease."There's many reasons to get [blood sugar] under control," says David Holtzman, chairman of neurology at Washington University in St. Louis. "But this is certainly one."Holtzman moderated a panel Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago that featured new research exploring the links between Alzheimer's and diabetes."The hazard for dementia is raised about twofold in individuals who have diabetes or metabolic disorder (a gathering of hazard factors that regularly goes before diabetes)," Holtzman says. "However, what's not been clear is, what's the connection?"One possibility includes the manner in which the cerebrum utilizes sugar, says Liqin Zhao, a partner teacher in the school of drug store at the University of Kansas.Zhao needed to realize why individuals whose bodies produce a protein called ApoE2 are more averse to get Alzheimer's.

Past research has indicated that these individuals are less likely to build up the sticky plaques in the mind associated with the disease. but, Zhao looked  at how ApoE2 affects glycolysis, a part of the process that allows brain cells to turn  sugar into energy.Her research found that glycolysis helps Brain cells communicate and get rid of toxins associated with Alzheimer's.So she offered ApoE2 to mice that build up a type of Alzheimer's. What's more, certain enough, Zhao says, the substance improved vitality creation in brain cells as well as made the cells more beneficial overall."All of this together expanded the mind's strength against Alzheimer's Disease".Another researcher described how mice fed a diet that includes lots of  of fat and sugar were likely to create both diabetes and memory impairment.The diet caused an expansion in useless brain cell in the mice, says Sami Gabbouj of the Institute of Biomedicine at the University of Eastern Finland. In individuals, he says, that could "compound" the improvement of Alzheimer's.

sleep problems are another common feature of both Alzheimer's and diabetes, says Shannon Macauley, an associate professor of gerontology and geriatric prescription at Wake Forest School of Medicine.She exhibited research indicating that in mice, the cerebrum changes related with Alzheimer's do interfere with sleep. In any case, irregular degrees of glucose, both high and low, additionally "lead to disrupted sleep." Because less sleep is a known risk factor for Alzheimer's. So maintaining normal glucose levels in Alzheimer's patients could improve their sleep and maight even slown down the disease,All of this research on animals could eventually help individualy, Washington University's Holtzman says."If we can make sense of what diabetes is doing to build hazard, possibly that would lead us to new targets, sedate targets or treatment targets."