Dr. Marien points out that confusion is not the first symptom of hypoglycemia. “When we are young, the first symptoms are tachycardia, we feel clammy, we have a pit in the stomach, we have nausea… These symptoms are much reduced as we get older.” And so, without noticing it, the older person may reach an even lower blood sugar level, becoming confused: “disoriented, sometimes haggard, listless and completely slowed down.”
There is a link between diabetes and risk of Alzheimer’s disease
“Diabetes is a factor in Alzheimer’s diseasebut also memory diseases in the broad sense, cerebrovascular diseases”, establishes the geriatrician. She adds that there is also a risk in the other direction: “When you see the brain of a person suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, it looks like the brain of a diabetic“. “I’m not saying that Alzheimer’s causes diabetes.she specifies, but we see that the brain is aged, sick, that there are fewer insulin receptors, because of Alzheimer’s disease.“
What is Alzheimer’s? Disease explained to children
For what ? “In Alzheimer’s disease, beta-amyloid proteins accumulate. The accumulation of these proteins in the brain destroys certain cells and damages others, including insulin receptors..”
How is Alzheimer’s diagnosed, and what treatments are available?
What mechanism links the two diseases? “The mechanism is not currently known, but there are common risk factors between the two, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity. Factors that predispose to both the development of diabetes and memory disease, even more cerebrovascular diseases than Alzheimer’s. What we see, however, is that repeated hypoglycemia has a deleterious effect on the brain..”
How does prevention work? “It takes years of diabetes to develop brain risk. And people who have perfect balance have a lower risk of developing this risk, compared to those who yo-yo. But diabetologists first provide information on more frequent problems: retinopathy, cardiac risk or polyneuropathy problems – nerve sensitivity, at the peripheral level – which have an impact on daily life.“
Specialists do not emphasize the same thing throughout the life of a person with diabetes. “When we are young, we try very hard to avoid excess sugar, while in older people, we try to avoid hypoglycemia, due to its effect on the brain or the risk of falls..”
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