While you may feel a little puzzled to relate diabetes with your mental strength; the medical world is conveniently using type 3 diabetes and Alzheimer interchangeably, for quite some time now.
In a nutshell, Alzheimer’s disease defines reduced intellectual capabilities or memory loss to put it in general terms. On the other hand, Diabetes is a condition of having excess sugar content in blood. It may be due to reduced pancreatic function that fails to produce required amount of insulin, needed for processing blood glucose; thus, leaving more than required levels of sugar in blood.
Insulin disorders can lead to “N” number of health issues; if left untreated or ignored. And can lack of insulin lead to loss of memory? The answer is definitely a YES.
So, if you’re still counting Alzheimer – Diabetes connection to be something fallacious and rumored, you’re wrong. It’s time you gear up, accept the fact and do the needful. And if by any chance you happen to be diabetic, now is the time to learn about this degenerative disease, Alzheimer, and stop this probable epidemic from taking a toll in future.
What is Alzheimer’s disease?
Alzheimer’s disease is a neurological degenerative disease hitting the neurons that constitute the nervous system. Alzheimer’s is a condition where nerve cells are infected, leading to their death. Thus, the brain gradually starts shrinking in size; leading to disturbed and reduced brain functions.
Normally, cells and tissues die and regenerate themselves as a healthy metabolic process. However, neurons don’t regenerate. So, if they are infected and are caused to die in the process, they are lost forever.
Unfortunately, Alzheimer’s has no permanent cure till date. However, identifying warning signs and taking remedial measures can prevent the disease from getting worse and thus helping one to continue with normal life.
What are the causes of Alzheimer’s disease?
The degenerative disease of Alzheimer is one of the most notorious ailments, afflicting a large population presently. However, to route it down to a couple of causes is not possible as it involves a number of genetic factors, environmental and lifestyle determinants governing it.
Nevertheless, below listed are some of the possible causes of Alzheimer’s disease:
- Amyloid Plaques:
As scientists studied brain structures of people suffering from Alzheimer’s, large deposition of amyloid plaques were found and therefore, it is considered to be one of the foremost reasons causing Alzheimer’s.
Amyloid plaques or beta amyloids are protein fragments that are viscid in nature. Initially, they remain as small molecular structures, free to move about. However, gradually owing to their cohesive nature, they form clusters and thus grow in size.
Formation of plaques in between brain cells, inhibit their normal contact. Thus, when brain cells or neurons do not remain connected to each other, normal functions are destined to get interrupted and stopped.
- Neurofibrillary Tangles:
Cells of human nervous system require specific and essential nutrients for normal functioning. There is a comprehensive network that ensures safe delivery of these nutrients to various parts of the brain and nervous system as a whole. This network is known as microtubule and is responsible for information transfer as well.
A protein named “Tau” keeps this transportation network functional. However, due to reasons unknown, tau is seen to distort structurally, leading to formation of twisted structures known as neurofibrillary tangles. These twists or tangles make microtubule unstable and have been seen in Alzheimer’s brain; thus considered an important factor leading to Alzheimer’s.
Other Related Factors:
- Inheriting APOE Gene: Apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene is considered to be one of the primary genetic factors that may lead to Alzheimer’s disease. Receiving two copies of APOE brings you to a high risk of developing the disease.
- Repeated skull injuries: Accidental injuries to your skull lead to inflammation. Brain tissues that continue to remain in inflammatory conditions become chronic. In this condition, microglia brain cells refuse to eliminate beta amyloids from brain and thus lead to Alzheimer’s.
- Long term dependency on anti anxiety drugs: Using drugs to treat anxiety or insomnia can prove otherwise and therefore needs to be administered carefully. Wrong or prolonged use may lead to other serious conditions such as memory loss.
- Your brain affected with diabetes: Uncontrolled diabetes resulting from low insulin production may also prove detrimental to your brain.
Alzheimer’s and Diabetes – How are these connected?
Glucose is the primary energy source for every organ in our body. While other organs can sometimes derive the required energy from fats and protein, brain can only receive the needed fuel from glucose.
Insulin that governs glucose uptake of organs, including brain, also functions as neurotransmitter in brain. Neurotransmitters are used by neurons or brain cells to remain connected. Or in other words, these serve as communication mediums for neurons.
Every moment, brain cells connect and develop cognitions and memories. In a situation where there is lack of insulin, there is a related lack of neurotransmitters and thus the brain cells do not remain connected; leading to disturbed cognition, confusions and memory loss.
Therefore, having a balanced insulin content within the body is vital. People already suffering from diabetes need to take additional care to make up for the reduced insulin levels and thus prevent Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s – Knowing the warning signs:
This neurological disease comes up with symptoms that can be easily confused with aging signs or something that just happened. However, if you or any one dear to you is showing up the following symptoms, it’s time you visit a doctor:
- Not being able to remember appointments or recent discussions with family and friends
- Narrating same stories repeatedly as if doing it for the first time
- Unable to recollect the place where you keep your daily use articles
- Getting confused when planning a sequential task
- Unfamiliarity of known travel routes
- Frequent mood swings and related behavioral changes
- Excessive irritation and hesitation to socialize
- Not being able to take up simple decisions
- Not being able to identify things that may hamper personal safety
- Not being able to recognize known faces
- Suspicions and hallucinations
- Difficulty in speaking and writing
Alzheimer Stages:
Alzheimer staging relates to the symptoms displayed by patients. In all, the disease has been divided into following 3 stages, and with every stage the disease becomes more difficult to combat. Let’s see Alzheimer disease in various stages and the related symptoms:
- Early stage:
In this stage, you can never suspect yourself or anybody else you know, to actually suffer from Alzheimer’s. The patient behaves as normally as ever; while being slightly confused and forgetful. You may encounter yourself or your dear ones occasionally misplacing regular use articles and that is somehow taken as normal and thus ignored.
- Middle Stage:
This is the longest phase of Alzheimer’s disease and comes up with symptoms that are more visible to the people around than to the patient.
Confusions in the early stage now begin to get worse. Excessive anger, restlessness and irritation without a cause are some of the worsening signs during this phase. Patients may show excessive aggression at minute things such as slight delay in being served dinner; vehemently refusing to take bath or putting on relevant attire.
The patients often complain that they do not find words to explain what they think. They do not remember their own names or other information. Meeting new people or visiting new places drive them to extreme confusions. They tend to ask similar questions a number of times. Some people also cannot remember seasons or part of the year. Patients in this stage do need assistance in most of their activities; although they may not accept or like the experience.
- Final Stages:
A complete disability to carry out any activity independently. Individuals suffering from this disease do not remember anything about themselves or anybody else around. Slurry speech that is difficult to understand is one of the most common indicators of this stage. Some patients also suffer from dysphagia and become excessively sensitive to infections.
Diagnosing and Treating Alzheimer disease:
Patients in the early stage of Alzheimer are mostly left undiagnosed for obvious reasons that they do not show sufficient symptoms to visit a doctor. However, a PET scan can diagnose early onset of Alzheimer’s in this stage.
A doctor mostly discusses symptoms, personal and family history to determine Alzheimer. Blood tests are also ordered to know if there is any drug associated problem that is causing similar symptoms. For the same reason, urine tests are also ordered to check if there is anything else that did not appear in the blood test.
A cognition test is then conducted to confirm the neuro degenerative disorder. The test involves asking patients questions relating to their names, residential address, part of the year or name of seasons, countdowns etc.
Finally, a CT Scan and an MRI is done to find out brain structures that confirm the disease.
Can Alzheimer’s be prevented?
Proper food habits can help to control beta amyloid deposition and thus control Alzheimer’s disease. Eating fresh vegetables, berries, grape juice etc. are all known to control the disease to a great extent.
Alzheimer’s affects elderly people above the age of 65 years or so, and there is a reason behind this. With age, our physical activities retard and so does our mental stimulation. As the brain does not encounter sufficient stimulation to keep neurons active and functional, Alzheimer’s becomes more common with age.
As neurons are not adequately stimulated, they do not communicate with other neurons and slowly become dysfunctional. Therefore, keeping your brains active during old age is important. Involving in light mental exercises such as puzzles, a game of chess or reading novels (without straining eyes) are vital activities to prevent the disease.
Socializing and being around new as well as known faces is again essential. A feeling of loneliness and acute depression have also proved to be key causative factors of Alzheimer.
Avoiding stress and keeping yourself happy and relaxed can also help to improve your overall mental state.
Finally, keeping your blood sugar levels under control is but essential to keep yourself at a safe distance from this difficult disease. This was all about Alzheimer’s and methods of prevention. Hope you have found this article useful.