Diabetes Shrinks Brain Size and Age By Two Years

Among all the other complications and risks diabetics need to be mindful of, they can now add their brain to the long list.
A new study says that now have to worry about their brain health. According to R. Nick Bryan, M.D., Ph.D., professor of radiology at the Perleman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, "We found that patients having more severe diabetes had less brain tissue, suggesting brain atrophy. They did not seem to have more vascular disease due to the direct effect of diabetes."
Researchers included 614 patients taken from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, Wake Forest Medical School, Winston-Salem, NC, Columbia University, New York, NY, and Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. Participants had a mean age of 62 with an average duration of the condition for 9.9 years. Researchers used MRIs to examine the patient's brain structure.
Researchers discovered that patients with severe cases of diabetes had less brain tissue present in their MRI scan than those with milder cases of the condition. Even when blood pressure was kept under control the difference in brain tissue was apparent. There was also less brain tissue in patients who had diabetes for more than 15 years compared to those who had the disease for four years or less. Based on this information researchers estimate that for every ten years a person lives with diabetes, the brain is two years older in comparison to those of the same age who do not have the condition.
"We found that diabetic patients have two strikes on the brain. There is the vascular effect, and now it looks as if there is a neurodegenerative insult on the brain too," said Bryan. "These results suggest that the adverse effects probably start fairly early on in the disease. They may be subtle, but they probably start early."
Bryan and his research team plan on testing the effects of aggressive treatments that lower blood sugar levels in the brain, as well as monitor
Reference: Counsel & Heal
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