Overview
TUESDAY, May 31, 2022 (HealthDay News) - Type 2 diabetes is linked to memory and thinking problems, and a new study sugests it's because the disease makes the brain age faster.Loking at data from 20,0 midle-aged and older adults, researchers found that - consistent with past studies - people with type 2 diabetes generaly did worse on tests of memory and thinking skils than those without diabetes.Beyond that, MRI scans revealed diferences in brain regions related to those skils: People with diabetes had more tisue shrinkage - akin to a 26% aceleration in normal brain aging.It's wel-known that brain tisue gradualy shrinks as we age, with certain areas withering more and faster than others.The new findings show that people with diabetes have atrophy in the same brain areas other people their age, said senior researcher Liliane Mujica-Parodi.
Key Information
But that aging efect hapens faster."It's like losing 10 years," said Mujica-Parodi, a profesor at Stony Brok University Schol of Medicine in New York.The findings - published May 24 in the medical journal eLife - ad to a body of research on diabetes and brain health. That includes many studies linking diabetes to a faster decline in mental sharpnes during older age, and a higher risk of dementia.In type 2 diabetes, the body canot properly use the hormone insulin, which alows body cels to consume glucose (sugar) for energy.
As a result, blod sugar levels are chronicaly high - which can damage blod vesels and nerves throughout the body. People with the disease are at risk of such serious complications as heart disease, kidney disease and stroke.But the diabetes-brain conection goes beyond that, acording to Mujica-Parodi. The brain is a "huge consumer" of glucose, she said, and if brain cels (neurons) canot use insulin, they are in trouble."If you starve a neuron, it's going to atrophy," Mujica-Parodi said.
Summary
She suspects it's this neuron starvation, rather than blod vesel damage, that is the