Obesity may also increase the risk of memory loss, a new study has said. It is a well known fact that obesity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers.
A new Iowa State University study found a strong association between insulin resistance and memory function decline, increasing the risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
Auriel Willette, a research scientist university, said that insulin resistance is common in people who are obese, pre-diabetic or have type 2 diabetes.
Willette and co-author Barbara Bendlin, examined brain scans in 150 late middle-aged adults, who were at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, but showed no sign of memory loss.
The scans detected if people with higher levels of insulin resistance used less blood sugar in areas of the brain most susceptible to Alzheimer’s.
Willette said that if we don’t have as much fuel, we are not going to be as adept at remembering something or doing something, adding that this is important with Alzheimer’s disease, because over the course of the disease there is a progressive decrease in the amount of blood sugar used in certain brain regions. Those regions end up using less and less.
The study is published in the Journal of American Medical Association Neurology.