In the world of medicine, Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) a hot topic in the recent decades. With it affecting over 90,000 Americans annually, the prevalence of this disease is on the rise. While a majority of research has focused on possible cures or reversing the degenerative affects of this disease, recent studies have taking a different approach to tackling this topic. Rather than concentrating efforts to fix or cure the degenerative effects of Alzheimer’s, researchers have begun to look into preventative care methods and causal mechanisms for this disease. One such correlational condition to Alzheimer’s is type II diabetes.
Characterized by insulin resistance, type II diabetes, also known as adult-onset diabetes, is a disease in which the body is unreceptive to insulin leading to higher concentrations of glucose in the blood. It has also been shown to disrupt many of the neurological pathways leading to development of Alzheimer’s. Insulin has been shown to regulate brain metabolism and energy balance in the hypothalamus along with stimulating memory formation, association, and retrieval in the hippocampus and forebrain. The binding of insulin also plays a major role in cognitive functioning and has been linked to many neuroprotective properties.
Most commonly, patients with Alzheimer’s display two distinct neurological characteristics: senile plaques and neurological tangles. Large clumps of amyloid fibrils (amyloid-beta peptides) are what make up senile plaques. While the aggregation of these peptides chains has shown to be toxic, recent studies have proven that this is not the leading cause of Alzheimer’s symptoms. Rather, it has been cited that the loss of plasticity or neuronal signaling that has been most strongly associated with Alzheimer’s like symptoms and is correlated with the formation of oligomers of Alpha-beta peptides called, Alpha-beta oligomers. These toxins have now been considered responsible for the synaptic loss that encompasses Alzheimer’s disease.
Without the ability for the body to be receptive to insulin, the brain is not able to function properly and can lead to the neurological tangles and plaque build ups as previously described. Because of this, it is essential when discussing preventative care methods to include a healthy diet. This may be the number one preventative care treatment as a healthy diet, along with exercise, significantly decreases the chances of developing type II diabetes. It is important to note that individuals with type I diabetes are not as high of a risk of developing AD since their symptoms can be treated with an insulin agonist. This is because patients with type I diabetes are not resistant to insulin, instead their bodies are not able to naturally produce insulin. Therefore, when given an artificial insulin supplement, the body will function properly.
As a society, if we do not seek to improve our diets, not only will our immediate lives be altered, but the long-term conditions of our lives could be severely compromised. While it may appear that this may just be a biological issue in the science community, if we wish to truly improve the lives of people around the world and in our nation, we must view this as an economic issue as well. Healthy food needs to be more accessible for everyone or else there will be a substantially larger population of people living in high needs nursing homes, contributing to the national economic deficit.
