LIVING A LONGER HEALTHIER LIFE

LIVING A LONGER HEALTHIER LIFE

Blood Sugar May be Linked to Old Age Memory Loss

Losing your memory in old age sometimes may have nothing to do with Alzheimer's and lots to do with blood sugar. So suggests new research that found people who don't process blood sugar normallyare likely to suffer poor memory and even a shrinkage of the brain region you need for recall. This can be a possible pre-diabetic condition .

The good news is that : If the small study from New York University is confirmed, simple diet and exercise could help many people protect their brains from the fogged memory associated with aging. Maybe the threat of memory loss will provide the final push for people to stay off the calories and stay off the couch.

For every Alzheimer's patient, there are eight older people who suffer enough memory loss to significantly harm their quality of life yet have no real dementia-causing disease.

Blood sugar was a natural suspect because diabetics are at higher-than-normal risk for memory problems, possibly because diabetes harms blood vessels that supply the brain, heart and other organs. A new study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that people's memory may be harmed long before they ever develop full-fledged diabetes — and that it's a problem of fuel, not plumbing. The study of 30 non-diabetic middle-age and elderly peoplemeasured how they performed on several memory tests; how quickly they metabolized blood sugar after a meal; and, using MRI scans, the size of the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for recent memory. The slower those outwardly healthy people metabolized blood sugar, the worse their memory was — and the smaller their hippocampus was.

Unlike most other tissues that have multiple fuel sources, the brain depends on blood sugar for almost all its energy. The longer that glucose stays in the bloodstream instead of being metabolized into body tissues, the less fuel the brain has to store memories. This research found no specific threshold at which memory automatically worsened, instead it was a spectrum: The slower the glucose metabolism, the more problems with memory. Once that metabolism reaches certain levels, it becomes a condition called "impaired glucose tolerance" or pre-diabetes, thought to afflict 16 million Americans. It strikes mostly in middle age, although people of any age who are overweight and sedentary are at risk — and we Americans are getting fatter every year.

Without treatment, pre-diabetes usually turns into full-fledged diabetes, which in turn brings deadly heart attacks, kidney failure and numerous other ailments. Why did only the memory-crucial hippocampus seem harmed? Previous animal and human research shows it's the region most likely damaged by any brain insult. Conversely, it's also a very adjustable region, with the potential for some recovery if people bring their blood sugar under control, he said. Convit's study sheds important light on yet another risk of bad blood sugar, said Dr. Fran Kaufman, president of the American Diabetes Association. She cautioned that it was a small study that requires confirmation before doctors test glucose solely for memory complaints.

But if confirmed, the same advice for lowering people's overall diabetes risk — drop a few pounds and do exercise as simple as walking 30 minutes a day — apparently would help protect people's brains, too, Kaufman said. Meanwhile, the diabetes association already recommends pre-diabetes testing for everyone 45 or older, and for younger people who are significantly overweight and have one other risk factor: a diabetic relative; bad cholesterol; high blood pressure; diabetes during pregnancy or gave birth to a baby bigger than 9 pounds; or belong to a racial minority group.

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