Here is how a high-carb diet with high blood sugar is associated with cognitive decline

Is There A Link Between Sugar and Alzheimer’s?

Alzheimer’s disease has been called “type 3” diabete for a reason.  A high-carb diet with high blood sugar is associated with cognitive decline.  A study that followed 5,189 people over 10 years and found the people with high blood sugar had a faster rate of cognitive decline than those with normal blood sugar.  And it found that the higher the blood sugar, the faster the cognitive decline!  Since Dementia is not curable, understanding the risk factors with sugar is important.

According to an article in the Atlantic by Olga Khazan, a professor at New York University reviewed studies connecting diabetes to Alzheimer’s.  The professor, named Melissa Schilling, wondered why people who have type 2 diabetes are almost twice as likely to get Alzheimer’s, and why do people who have diabetes and are treated with insulin also more likely to get Alzheimer’s.   She suggested that elevated insulin plays a role in Alzheimer’s disease.

There are many studies that have tied elevated insulin, or “hyperinsulinemia,” to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s.  It is also worrisome that people with type 1 diabetes, who don’t make insulin, are thought to have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s also.  According to Khazan, “Schilling believes this happens because the insulin-degrading enzyme, a product of insulin that breaks down both insulin and amyloid proteins in the brain—the same proteins that clump up and lead to Alzheimer’s disease. People who don’t have enough insulin, like those whose bodies’ ability to produce insulin has been tapped out by diabetes, aren’t going to make enough of this enzyme to break up those brain clumps. Meanwhile, in people who use insulin to treat their diabetes and end up with a surplus of insulin, most of this enzyme gets used up breaking that insulin down, leaving not enough enzyme to address those amyloid brain clumps.”

Roughly 86 million Americans have blood sugar that is higher than normal and diet is one of the best thing to help prevent Alzheimer’s.   Stay healthy – eat healthy!

Source:  https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/01/the-startling-link-between-sugar-and-alzheimers/551528/