DIABETES LINKED TO MEMORY DECLINE IN OLDER ADULTS
Culture-Magazine | DIABETES LINKED TO MEMORY DECLINE | Culture-Magazine.com
Older adults with poorly controlled diabetes could struggle with what’s referred to as episodic memory, the potential to consider specific events experienced recently or long ago, a research suggests. Researchers examined results from a series of four memory tests done from 2006 to 2012 for 950 older adults with diabetes and 3,469 elderly folks without the disease.
The individuals who had diabetes and accelerated blood sugar performed worse in the first round of memory tests at the start of the research and in addition experienced a bigger decline in memory function via the end of the study. “We think that the combination of diabetes and high blood sugar raises the probabilities of a number of health issues,” mentioned lead study author Colleen Pappas, an aging researcher at the University of South Florida in Tampa. “Our research brings awareness to the probability that worsening memory could also be one of them,” Pappas added by email.
While the study doesn’t discover why this could occur, it’s viable that increased blood sugar damages brain cells that transmit messages in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory, Pappas mentioned. At the start of the study, when individuals were about 73 years old on average, they all received blood tests that measure average blood sugar levels. This so-called hemoglobin A1c test measures the percent of hemoglobin – the protein in red blood cells that includes oxygen – that’s coated with sugar, with readings of 6.5 percent or above-signaling diabetes. The individual without diabetes had average A1c levels of 5.6, regarded a normal or healthy range. However, the diabetics had average A1c levels of 6.7, putting them at extended risk of complications from the disease.
Researchers additionally did memory tests using immediate and delayed word recalls to assess changes in brain function over time. Higher A1c levels had been associated with lower scores on that first memory test and a steeper decline in scores over time, researchers note in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Higher A1c levels in the individuals with diabetes, nonetheless, defined most of that organization.
One limitation of the research is that researchers only checked A1c once, at the start of the study, the authors note. That makes it hard to say how shifts in blood sugar over time might have affected any changes in memory. Researchers additionally lacked data on medications people took to manage blood sugar, which makes it complex to assess whether memory lapses perhaps averted in sufferers who took medications designed to control diabetes, the authors also point out.
However, the findings suggest that preserving blood sugar levels in a healthy range may help maintain memory efficiency over time, mentioned Dr. Joe Verghese, director of the Montefiore-Einstein Center for the Aging Brain in New York. “sufferers with diabetes can experience several brain changes that enhance over time such as shrinkage of areas involved in memory and thinking as well as harm to blood vessels supplying the brain,” Verghese, who wasn’t involved in the study, stated via e-mail. “Higher blood sugar levels may be detrimental to brain health even in older adults who don’t meet formal criteria for diabetes but are in the gray zone.” Individual with diabetes also need to be aware that even if their blood sugar is well managed, they’re still at elevated risk for memory problems and impairments in cognitive function, stated Mark Espeland, a researcher at Wake woodland School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The best defense is avoiding diabetes in the first place, Espeland, who wasn’t involved in the research, mentioned via e-mail. “Taking steps to decrease one’s risk for diabetes is crucial to maintaining a healthy brain,” Espeland stated. “These steps include an active lifestyle and avoiding obesity.”
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