USC Dornsife psychologists have found that those patients with untreated diabetes developed signs of Alzheimer’s disease 1.6 times faster than people who did not have diabetes.
“Our findings emphasize the importance of catching diabetes or other metabolic diseases in adults as early as you can,” says Daniel A. Nation, a psychologist at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “Among people with diabetes, the difference in their rate of developing the signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s is clearly tied somehow to whether or not they are on medication for it.”
The team looked at the health data of 1,289 participants from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, which included brain scans, memory tests, and biomarker tests for diabetes and vascular disease.
Around 900 individuals, of that 54 people had type 2 diabetes but were not receiving medication and 67 were being treated. A total of 530 had normal blood glucose levels while 250 had prediabetes.
“It is possible that the medicines for treating diabetes might make a difference in the progression of brain degeneration,” said Daniel A. Nation, Associate Professor at the University of Southern California.
“But it’s unclear how exactly those medications might slow or prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, so that is something we need to investigate,” he added.
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