Do you want more impetus to remember taking your diabetes medications regularly? According to new research, type 2 diabetes medications can do more than controlling your blood sugar levels; they could protect your brain health, too.
Researchers have found that patients with untreated or poorly controlled type 2 diabetes are vulnerable to develop Alzheimer’s and dementia faster than patients who undergo regular treatment and non-diabetics.
The study was published in early March in the medical journal called Diabetes Care.
Lead study author Daniel Nation said, “Several diabetes drugs have been linked to protective effects on neurons.”
Nation, who is also the psychology professor at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, explained, “These new findings add to a growing body of research around the ‘correlation between diabetes and dementia.’”
The study looked at data from more than 1,280 adults. The research team analyzed and compared the spinal fluid of the participants with type 2 diabetes for signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s. Some of them were treated with medications, while some were not.
To be more precise, Nation’s team was looking for “brain tangles,” which are protein clumps disrupting the signals between brain cells in patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s.
On further evaluation, the team found that patients with untreated type 2 diabetes showed a worse presence and progression of brain tangles than those who were treated well.
The findings raised two possibilities. Untreated diabetes may fasten the progression of dementia and Alzheimer’s and that type 2 diabetes medication may actually protect the brain from such neurological disorders.
If the latter is proved, is it possible that diabetes medication — such as metformin – could also help protect brain health in people without diabetes? “Unfortunately, probably not, said Nation. He opines that the medications prevent diabetes-related brain injury. However, the lead author believes that this study has an important takeaway. He said, “Whether you have diabetes or not, it stresses the ‘importance of catching diabetes or other metabolic diseases in adults as early as you can.’”
