We hear about diabetes all the time in today’s culture. Regardless of what type of diabetes that a person has, the disease in general is much talked about in our society due to the ways that we eat. Fortunately, there are ways in which we are able to treat diabetes, as most people are aware. Unfortunately however, is the fact that we don’t realize the entire effect that the disease may have on us. Recently, my neurochemistry class read an article concerned with a potential link between type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. No that is not a type-o but in fact the truth, this link has been indentified.
Many people are aware as to the importance of insulin in the treatment of diabetes but yet unaware, as I was, as to the role that insulin plays in your brain. Insulin-like growth factor 1, or IGF-1, is a key player in the brain as it pertains to the proliferation of cells as well as at the same time regulating the glucose metabolism that many people have come to expect from insulin.
But in the brain one of the not very well known jobs of insulin is to decrease inflammatory responses in the brain. Just like the sprained ankle that you have had before, trying to reduce the inflammation is key. If insulin is not present in the brain, or is but at too little of levels, this will increase the inflammation in the brain as well as cause an increase in oxidative stress in the brain, which can open up a whole new bag of issues. One of the issues with an increase in oxidative stress is that it leads to the apoptosis, or death, of your neuronal cells and I think just about everyone in the world knows that the death of your brain cells is a very bad thing. Low insulin also leads to low levels of norepinephrine in the brain, and this leads to an overall decrease in cognitive functioning, comparable to what we see in many neurodegenerative diseases.
This is where the link between diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease lies; it’s really a scary thought. Many people are under the impression that since we have a way to treat diabetes that it is not too big of a deal for people to live with it. But, we need to start making people more and more aware of what low insulin levels could mean. Sure, this paper that we read and this blog I’m posting is a start, but what’s even scarier is that it is just that, the start. The more we learn, the more science may keep uncovering more and more ways that diabetes is linked to a multitude of neurodegenerative diseases and conditions. We need to stay aware and make others aware that diabetes is no joke, and we definitely do not know everything about it. The importance of eating healthy has never been greater. Eat healthy people.
Diabetes Evil Twin…
