More evidence that insulin plays a role in the development of dementia
Posted on 11 April 2008
Last month one of my posts was devoted to some research which found a link between weight accumulation around the mid-riff (abdominal obesity) and an increased risk of dementia. In this post, I also explored some of the mechanisms which might explain this association. At the heart of these suggested mechanisms is the hormone insulin. As I wrote in the post, high levels of insulin may possibly increase the production of a substance called
Published April 11, 2008 . Filed under: Brain and Behaviour, Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome, Healthy Eating, Low-Carbohydrate/Carbohydrate Restriction
I just blogged about this on my blog, too. I was confused as to whether they had measured insulin output or just estimated it based on the results of the intraventous glucose tolerance test.
I don’t have access to the full text of the article. Did you see it? And if so, did they measure the actual insulin output to see if people were truly insulin deficient?
April 11, 2008 @ 11:54 pm
Jenny
Insulin was directly measured in this study.
April 12, 2008 @ 6:10 am
Thanks. Do you think that the damage is actually caused by low insulin, or by the very high blood sugars that result when people are insulin deficient.
This was a population who were diabetic for decades BEFORE DCCT suggested there were benefits to lowering blood sugar even to the relatively high 7% A1c level. So it is safe to assume their blood sugars were at toxic levels for 30+ years.
Even now, most doctors consider 7% to be a safe blood sugar and won’t start treating patients until the A1c is over 8%, though both these blood sugar levels are high enough to cause major organ damage all over the brain.
I do wish these studies would map these possible diabetic complications to actual blood sugar levels rather than a diagnosis.
April 12, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
Dr. in the introduction to the article above and in other advice on diet you make remarks suggesting a “diet low in ‘disruptive’ carbs including many forms of bread, potato, rice, pasta and breakfast cereal. I am left wondering about the rice. Are all forms of rice (processed, whole, organic, varietals) included? Of course I am hoping you will say only “white” rice. Also as many pastas are now made from soy, rice and other sources does this mitigate your advice. rm
April 12, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
The problem with low carb diets is that carbohydrates have formed – and still form – the foundation of most human diets. Common sense would suggest that we have adapted to them. And the implications of suggesting low carb diets to that large proportion of humans who have limited alternative food sources are profound.
April 13, 2008 @ 6:41 am
Jenny
“Do you think that the damage is actually caused by low insulin, or by the very high blood sugars that result when people are insulin deficient.”
Of these options, I reckon the later is more likely.
RM
There are variations in the GI across varieties of rice and pasta (see 6. Foster-Powell K, et al. International tables of glycemic index. Am J Clin Nutr 1995;62(suppl);871S
April 13, 2008 @ 8:09 am
well they don’t call sugar “the white death” for nothing. It’s main function in cooking (I bet you think it is to make things sweet) well it is a binder it makes things nice and sticky. Think of toffee, jam, cakes caramel, fairyfloss (cotten candy) etc try making these things without sugar the results are less than average, oh you can make a reasonable replication of these things but there is always something lacking in the texture. Just think about the clogging sticky mess sugar produces when added to liquids & heated a little & you can get the picture. Where as fat only clogs if it is cold & even then it has a nice slippery texture not so sugar. Is it any wonder sugar disrupts the production of hormone insulin in your body when you eat too much of the sticky sweet stuff. Your body only needs a teaspoon of sugar in the blood at any one time, in fact sugar is a toxin to the body that causes damage to the cells and allows them to mutate (they actually grow cancer cells in sugar cultures, doesn’t that tell you anything? It has been well known in medical circles for decades that sugar feeds cancer.) & insulin’s job is to regulate sugar in the blood so that it doesn’t get to dangerous levels. So over many years of injesting copious amounts of sugar making your pancreas work overtime continuously to get rid of the sugar in your blood is it any little wonder that things break down. Sugar we can all live without it and as for the other “white” carbohydrates that turn into sugar when you eat them we can do without those in our diets too. They only make profits for the big agri groups & pharmaceuticals because they make us sick which gives them a market to flog their so called “cures” to.
So too much insulin is the direct cause of too much sugar in the diet guess what we should cut out of our diets to combat this the so called experts tell us – saturated fat. Now doesn’t that make a lot of sense? NOT !!
April 13, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
Hi John
Food riots at the moment seem to be about bread or rice – staple foods for much of the world, plus maize in South America, and – traditionally – oats and potatoes in Northern Europe. I would imagine that the move to these foods more or less coinicided with the development of settled communities and agriculture.
I believe that dietary recommendations need to be ethical & practical, so, for example, I would deem something like the Atkins diet to be neither since it is unfeasible for more than a small proportion of the world to follow. I don’t see how the world can be fed without maintaining the primacy of these staples.
You are the nutritionist and I would not like to engage in debate on that aspect, although my understanding is that whole grain foods tend to have slow release effects on blood sugars.
best
Peter
April 18, 2008 @ 9:18 am
Peter
“I would imagine that the move to these foods more or less coinicided with the development of settled communities and agriculture.”
I think that
April 21, 2008 @ 1:11 pm