In the United States, nearly 80 million people, or one in four, have diabetes or prediabetes. To make matters worse, rates of diabetes are also rising dramatically among children and adolescents.
The latest available data show that the incidence of type 2 diabetes in children aged 10-19 years rose by 30% between 2001 and 2009. The same pattern is seen in other developed countries.
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More than a third of adults in the UK now have pre-diabetes, and British researchers warn that this will lead to a massive avalanche of people with type 2 diabetes in the coming years, with serious consequences for healthcare and life expectancy.
Diabetes linked to faster decline in memory skills
One of the many debilitating health issues associated with type 2 diabetes is a higher risk of developing dementia. According to a recent study, the diabetic brain ages five years faster than normal. People diagnosed with diabetes in their 50s have a significantly increased risk of mental decline by age 70.
Previous studies have also shown that people with type 2 diabetes lose more brain volume than expected as they age — especially gray matter. This brain shrinkage is another factor that contributes to dementia.
“The lesson is that to have a healthy brain at age 70, you need to eat right and exercise right at age 50. Prediabetes and poor blood sugar control lead to significant cognitive decline. We know how to prevent or delay the diabetes associated with this decline…”
The importance of healthy blood vessels for proper function
Many different factors play a role in memory loss and dementia. One important factor is your vascular health, and I’ve discussed the link between heart disease and dementia before. In fact, tests that predict your future risk of heart disease are better at predicting your risk of dementia than specific dementia risk tests.
In the featured study, over a 20-year period, people with diabetes experienced a 19% greater decline in intelligence than those without diabetes. Those with prediabetes also had a significantly increased risk of memory loss. Researchers believe that diabetes-related memory loss is due to damage to small blood vessels in the brain.
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