Keeping Your Blood Sugar In Check Could Lower Your Alzheimer's Risk

"Brain scientists are offering a new reason to control blood sugar levels: It might help lower your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease."

"'There's many reasons to get [blood sugar] under control,' says David Holtzman, chairman of neurology at Washington University in St. Louis. 'But this is certainly one.'"

"Holtzman moderated a panel Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago that featured new research exploring the links between Alzheimer's and diabetes."

"The risk for dementia is elevated about twofold in people who have diabetes or metabolic syndrome (a group of risk factors that often precedes diabetes)," Holtzman says. "But what's not been clear is what's the connection?"

"One possibility involves the way the brain metabolizes sugar, says Liqin Zhao, an associate professor in the school of pharmacy at the University of Kansas."

"Zhao wanted to know why people whose bodies produce a protein called ApoE2 are less likely to get Alzheimer's."

"Previous research has shown that these people are less likely to develop the sticky plaques in the brain associated with the disease. But Zhao looked at how ApoE2 affects glycolysis, a part of the process that allows brain cells to turn sugar into energy."