New research from the Univ. of Liverpool found that post-meal blood sugar levels may be a factor in long-term brain health. Evidence suggests that spikes in blood sugar after eating may raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Previous studies have found that blood sugar concerns and metabolic health were linked to a higher risk of dementia and cognitive decline. But it was unclear how blood sugar concerns made an impact on the brain. Some researchers wondered if the connection was the other way around. They believed being at a higher risk for Alzheimer’s also made you at higher risk for blood sugar concerns. This research showed it might be because of spikes.
"This finding could help shape future prevention strategies, highlighting the importance of managing blood sugar not just overall, but specifically after meals," said lead author Dr. Andrew Mason.
The study used genetic and health data from more than 350,000 people in the UK Biobank study. They found that people with higher blood sugar after meals had a 69 percent higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s. The risk was not linked to brain shrinkage or decreased white matter. Blood sugar was impacting the brain in some other way.
The researchers think it might come back, as health problems so often do, to inflammation. Spikes may cause inflammation in brain cells after meals that can lead to dementia.
There is a drawback in this research. The team did not get the same findings when they looked at an older dataset using similar medical data from more than 111,300 people. People in the UK Biobank tend to be healthier, come from a higher socioeconomic background and are almost exclusively white. The second group of people was more diverse. The team said they needed to do more work to see if their research was correct.
"We first need to replicate these results in other populations and ancestries to confirm the link and better understand the underlying biology," said Dr. Vicky Garfield, from the Univ. of Liverpool. "If validated, the study could pave the way for new approaches to reduce dementia risk in people with [blood sugar concerns]."
Research like this is interesting to us. It’s always important to be aware that what is true for one group might not be true for another. But their future research may prove that their findings were generally correct for everyone. Equally, they could find that this is only true for white that would also be helpful information. Knowing how to help people, even if it’s not everyone, is a step forward because it rules things out and opens up new possible treatments.
