According to a new study, diabetes and Alzheimer's diseases are more
related than everybody thought. Some researchers believe that
Alzheimer's could be a form of diabetes, because findings show that
insulin production in the brain declines as Alzheimer's disease
advances.
Through a series of experiments, a group of researchers discovered that
the brain produces insulin and that this substance produced by brains
of patients with Alzheimer's illness tends to fall below normal levels.
For the neuropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and professor of
pathology at Brown University Medical School, Suzanne M. de la Monte,
“insulin disappears early and dramatically in Alzheimer's disease and
many of the unexplained features of Alzheimer's, such as cell death and
tangles in the brain, appear to be linked to abnormalities in insulin
signaling. This demonstrates that the disease is most likely a
neuroendocrine disorder, or another type of diabetes”.
During the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, brain levels of insulin
and its related cellular receptors fall precipitously, as her group of
researchers explained. They believe that Alzheimer's might be a new
form of diabetes since the evidence shows insulin levels continue to
drop progressively as the Alzheimer's disease becomes more severe.
The team led by de la Monte also found that low levels of acetylcholine
are directly linked to this loss of insulin and insulin-like growth
factor function in the brain. Acetylcholine is a hallmark of
Alzheimer's disease.
The researchers team autopsied the brain tissue of 45 patients
diagnosed with different degrees of Alzheimer's called “Braak Stages”
and compared those tissues to samples taken from individuals with no
history of the disease.
