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Individuals who have blood sugar levels at the lower end from the normal range perform better on memory tests than non-diabetics with higher blood sugar levels, based on new information published online Wednesday in the peer-reviewed medical journal Neurology.
Lead author Agnes Fl?el of Charite University Medicine in Berlin and her colleagues recruited 141 people with an average age of 63, based on Nanci Hellmich of USA Today. None of those men and women had diabetes type 2 or prediabetes, and not one of them had demonstrated any signs of cognitive or memory-related impairments.
“The study participants took a number of memory tests coupled with their blood sugar tested. They also had brain scans to determine how big the hippocampus area, which plays a huge role in memory,” Hellmich said. “The findings demonstrated that chronically higher blood glucose levels exert a negative influence on memory.”
Specifically, the subjects were asked to review a list of 15 words, and then recall them Half an hour later, according to Los Angeles Times reporter Mary MacVean. The ability to recall fewer words was related to higher glucose levels, she said, and people individuals also were found to have less volume within the hippocampus C an area from the brain related to both short- and long-term memory.
“Fl?el says the findings suggest that even for people inside the normal range of blood sugar levels, lowering their levels may well be a way possible to avoid memory problems as time passes,” Hellmich said. “She highlights the study is relatively small and doesn’t prove expected outcomes. There’s an excuse for large numerous studies to test whether lowering glucose will be preventing dementia.”
“Earlier research has revealed ‘deleterious effects of diabetic glucose levels on brain structure, particularly the hippocampus,’ they wrote,” according to MacVean. She added that they also explained that “impaired glucose tolerance and kind 2 diabetes also provide been related to lower cognitive function along with a higher incidence of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.”
Robert Ratner, the main scientific and medical officer with the American Diabetes Association, told USA Today that the outcomes of the study only show a connection between glucose levels and memory, not necessarily a causal relationship.
He explained they have not shown that memory loss is caused by higher blood sugar levels, or that reducing blood sugar would improve recall. Nevertheless, Ratner noted it’s “not surprising that blood sugar levels can potentially have these types of negative impacts. The risk of dementia is higher in people with diabetes. It has been well established that elevated glucose impacts thinking processes and recovery in people carrying out a stroke.”
