The latest study says the mental ability of prediabetes patients may decline quickly!
Prediabetes occurs when a person’s blood sugar level is higher than normal but not that high enough to see a physician to diagnose diabetes. People who have type 2 diabetes may experience prediabetes first. In the United States, around 84 million people the age of above 20 have prediabetes and 90% of people have no clue that they have it.
Mental Ability of Prediabetes Patients May Decline – a Study Says
Prediabetes may cause a threat to brain health according to a new British study.
Victoria Garfield., who is the study lead author in the Institute of Cardiovascular Science and MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Aging, at University College London stated “As an observational study, it cannot prove higher blood sugar levels cause worsening brain health. However, we believe there is a potential connection that needs to be investigated further.”
In this study, Garfield and her colleagues examined UK Biobank records on a half-million people with an average age of 58. They identified that people who had prediabetes were at a 42% higher risk of mental decline over an average of four years. 54 percent of people are more likely to develop vascular dementia over an average of eight years.
Garfield’s team reported that prediabetes was not linked with a high risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Minisha Sood, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City stated “The takeaway is that cognitive risk related to elevated glucose levels occurs across a spectrum,” further added about the prediabetic stage, “where the body overproduces insulin in order to maintain normal blood sugar levels,” can damage the brain process.
Minisha says people who are in a prediabetic state should be aware of the threats and should be informed by their physicians.
The research team also analyzed people with full-blown type 2 diabetes and discovered they could develop vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease more than people who have normal blood sugar levels.
The research was published online in Diabetes journal with the name Obesity and Metabolism.
Garfield recorded in a university news release,” Previous research has found a link between poorer cognitive outcomes and diabetes, but our study is the first to investigate how having blood sugar levels that are relatively high — but do not yet constitute diabetes — may affect our brain health.”
Dr. Barbara Keber, a chair of family medicine at Glen Cove Hospital in Glen Cove stated that prediabetes may disturb blood flow in the brain, as it has a similar impact elsewhere in our brain. Kebar described that too-tight blood sugar control may be connected with hypoglycemia in patients that also “increased risks for development of cognitive decline and dementia.”
Therefore, “the take-home here is that we need to prevent prediabetes and diabetes as well as control the glucose levels for those who have been diagnosed without causing hypoglycemia, to prevent the development of cognitive decline and vascular dementia,” said Keber.
“For the lay population, they need to follow a diet which reduces the risks of developing diabetes, exercise regularly — both isometric (strength training) and aerobic (cardiac training) — to reduce weight gain and prevent the development of both prediabetes and diabetes,” Keber stated. This study explained the mental ability of prediabetes patients.
Diabetes causes Mood Swings
Diabetes causes more than blood sugar. It also leads to mood swings that may place emotional stress on personal life including relationships. Changes in body glucose level can cause rapid changes in mood and other mental illnesses such as trouble thinking clearly, stress and anxiety.
In order to discover how much diabetes affects brain health, scientists have done a study with nearly 16,000 adults whose average age was 57 for more than 20 years. 13 % of the participants had diabetes at the beginning of this study. After 2 decades, scientists examined the people who have the cognitive function at three different visits. They also observed patients’ blood sugar levels by using the marker HbA1c that can be utilized as an indicator of how brilliantly a patient’s diabetes can be controlled.
In this research, people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in their middle-age had a nineteenth percent decline in mental ability that includes the speed of executive function, thinking abilities(both planning and organizing information). Scientists concluded that this change might be similar to the mental decline that usually occurs between the ages of 60-65. They measured that people who had diabetes in mid-life ages brains are faster than normal.
They also discovered that people had a smaller decrease in mental ability who did not diagnose and people who had pre-diabetes. The variety of study volunteers permitted the scientists to observe all these changes were similar across racial groups.
This wasn’t the first research to connect diabetes to age-related mental decline. Earlier studies including a 2012 study in the Internal Medicine JournalTrusted Source, discovered a relationship between dementia and diabetes. However, recent research recommends that brain changes happen in people with type 2 diabetes even before they have improved to the point of dementia. Additionally, people who haven’t been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes face a loss of brainpower.
