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According to researchers at the University of Southern California, the treatment of type 2 diabetes could also be useful for patients with Alzheimer's disease.
"This study could be the first to compare the rate of development of the pathology of Alzheimer's disease and dementia in people with normal glucose levels, prediabetes or people with type 2 diabetes, who 'they are treated or not,' explain the researchers.
In this study, researchers focused on the tau pathology badociated with Alzheimer's disease. "When entanglements combine with sticky beta-amyloid plaques – a toxic protein – they disrupt signals between brain cells, impairing memory and other functions," according to the researchers.
The researchers badyzed data from 1,289 participants in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, which included brain tests, memory tests, and biomarker tests for diabetes and vascular disease.
The team of researchers found that patients with untreated diabetes showed signs of Alzheimer's 1.6 times faster than their counterparts. Out of 900 participants, 54 of them with type 2 diabetes were not treated, while 67 were receiving treatment.
"It's possible that drugs to treat diabetes will make a difference in the progression of brain degeneration," said Daniel Nation of the University of Southern California. "But it's unclear exactly how these drugs might slow down or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease, so we need to study this."
The researchers point out that the results demonstrate that it is vital to diagnose diabetes or other metabolic diseases in the early adult.
"Although this study is observational and, therefore, causality can not be inferred, the results confirm the potential importance of treatment status in the risk of Alzheimer's disease badociated with type 2 diabetes" , concluded the study.
The results were published in the journal Diabetic treatments.
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