Diabetes accelerates brain aging
The list of side effects related to diabetes isalready long: retinopathy, kidney failure… And it, apparently, continues to lengthen. Indeed, researchers from the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, USA, conducted a study on the consequences of diabetes on our brain.
The results of this study were published in early December 2014 in the American journal Annals of Internal Medicine(1).
Adult diabetes accelerates brain aging
According to researchers, adult diabetes accelerates brain aging by about 5 years. That is to say, for example, a 60-year-old diabetic person would have a cognitive decrease(2) of a 65-year-old and healthy person.
Too high blood sugar levels candamage tissuesand the vascular system throughout the body. This is according to Elizabeth SELVIN, assistant professor of epidemiology at Johns HOPKINS University. She adds that “if we can do better in the prevention and control of diabetes, we can prevent dementia in a large number of people,” also noting that simply losing 5 to 10% of your weightcan prevent the onset of diabetes.
The study researchers also noted that this decrease in memory and other cognitive functions was related to the progression of dementia. This would lead to a significant loss of mental abilities, which can have consequences on the person’s daily life.
Overcome this “problem”?
To overcome this problem, Professor SELVIN advises that “to have a healthy brain at 70, you have toeat healthyand exercise at 50″.
Professor SELVIN nevertheless specifies that even if many things are done to delay this brain aging by a few years, there will still be a significant impact on the population, the quality of life, as well as the costs of care.
Indeed, recall that a 2010 estimate noted that dementia, and in particular Alzheimer’s disease, cost $159 billion each year.
So we can see that, ultimately, a person with diabetes, diagnosed with diabetes in middle age, will be more likely to have cognitive problemsin the next 20 years, unlike a healthy person with normal blood sugar.
Diabetes affects about 356 million people worldwide and 552 million people could suffer from this disease within fifteen years (read our article on this subject).
Stephen Paul is the lead author and founder of My Health Sponsor. Holder of a diploma in health and well-being coaching with more than 200 articles in the field of health, he makes it a point of honor to offer advice based on reliable information, based on scientific research, and verified by health professionals.