Midlife onset of diabetes and high blood pressure leads to brain atrophy and cognitive decline, finds study.
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The research team lead by Rosebud O. Roberts of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN assessed 1,437 individuals with an average age of 80 for their thinking and memory skills. Middle age was defined as age 40 to 64. Those with either mild cognitive impairment and/ or thinking problems were included in the study. Their medical records were searched in depth to trace the history of diabetes and hypertension.
Researchers then performed brain scans in the participants so as to look for markers of brain damage that harbinger dementia, severe loss of mental abilities.
What follows are the relevant shocking observations:
• Compared with the healthy ones (i.e. those without diabetes) people who developed diabetes in middle age had a 2.9% smaller total brain volume; the volume in the hippocampus, a part of the brain associated with memory, was smaller by 4%. Reduced brain volumes impair cognition.
• These people were twice more likely to have memory and thinking problems than those without diabetes.
• Data on people who developed the relevant ailments in old age showed that- people who developed high blood pressure in old age did not suffer any adverse impacts on the brain while the case was different for diabetes! This meant diabetes would invariably affect the brain irrespective of the age of onset of the ailment.
Dementia is, unfortunately, incurable; prevention is all that can be done. "In the absence of a cure for dementia, our findings emphasize the importance of prevention and control of type 2 diabetes as a means to reducing the burden of dementia due to Alzheimer's or vascular dementia," adds Dr. Roberts.
Reference: American Academy of Neurology
Source-Medindia