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Healthy Body, Healthy Mind- Diabetes Linked to Dementia

12/01/2016

Patients who suffer from type 2 diabetes have been found to be up to 60% more likely to get dementia, according to a recent study.

After a huge survey of over 2.5 million people, it was found that healthy lifestyles were important for reducing the amount of diabetes, and also Alzheimer’s, which had a direct correlation with the disease.

Rachel Huxley, the head of the study asserted that diabetics who quit smoking and drinking and ate healthily while exercising significantly reduced their chances of developing dementia.

She added: “The take-home message is that for many people – with and without diabetes – dementia is not inevitable.

“There’s some truth in the adage, ‘A healthy body equals a healthy mind’.”

Professor Huxley and her team painstakingly reviewed the results of 14 studies stretching back over a decade.

They investigated the correlation between Type 2 diabetes, when the body does not produce enough insulin or its cells do not react to it – and two different types of dementia.

The first type- non-vascular dementia, typifies Alzheimer’s which shows evidence of nerve damage.

Professor Huxley said: “Vascular dementia, in contrast, is the result of impaired blood flow to the brain, usually by a series of small, imperceptible strokes.”

Crucially, the research, which was published by online journal Diabetes Care, found the risk of any form of dementia was 60 per cent higher for diabetics than those without the disease.

However, it was discovered that women with Type 2 diabetes appear to have about a 20 per cent higher susceptibility of developing vascular dementia than male diabetics.

Prof Huxley added: “We still don’t fully understand why women with diabetes are at excess risk of vascular disease and it may be related to sex hormones.

“It’s plausible that the same mechanisms that drive the greater excess risk of heart disease and stroke in women with diabetes are also causing the excess risk of vascular dementia.

“It may also be that blood glucose levels in women with diabetes are much more difficult to control than in men with diabetes.”

Professor Huxley was careful to say that her research did not prove that type 2 diabetes was the cause of either type of dementia, or why exactly there seemed to be a link.

It’s a good question but one to which we don’t have a definitive answer,” she added.

“Some studies suggest that vessel damage in the brain caused by diabetes is an important factor.”

Written By:

Daniel James
www.danieljamesbio.com
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