[ad_1]
There can actually be a benefit to having diabetes.
Taking high-blood-sugar medication could possibly ease the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, according to a Mount Sinai study published Thursday in PLOS One online.
"Our data indicates that Alzheimer's disease is associated with plaques," the study's senior author, Vahram Harutunian, told The Post.
In earlier studies, Mount Sinai researchers identified the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease and diabetes compared with those without diabetes.
In the new study, they found it was more likely that patients took metformin, which protected them from the lesions.
Researchers examined the tissue and brain capillaries of 34 people with Alzheimer's and type 2 diabetes. They compared them with tissue from 30 brains of people with Alzheimer's who did not have diabetes – more a control group of 19 brains without Alzheimer's or diabetes.
Brain tissue from diabetics had half the markers of Alzheimer's disease compared to those who did not have diabetes.
Scientists believe those markers start to form "years or decades" before symptoms even appear in Alzheimer's patients, Haroutunian says. It's the accumulation of the lesions that eventually leads to memory loss.
It suggests that current Alzheimer's patients who have diabetes should continue taking diabetes medications instead of relying on dietary changes, he says.
However, Haroutunian adds that it's too soon to start giving diabetes medication to non-diabetes patients: "Their blood sugar levels would drop, they might be, there would be all kinds of nasty effects."
But it's a big development toward finding the "holy grail" of Alzheimer's disease: preventing the cellular destruction that leads to memory loss, he says.
"[The findings] "Haroutunian, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, says Haroutunian. "Hopefully, we can find drugs that would have similar effects on the brain without changing blood sugar levels."
Source link
