- Researchers say higher blood sugar levels can affect brain health and lead to cognitive decline.
- They say people with diabetes as well as prediabetes face these risks.
- Higher blood sugar levels can cause inflammation that can result in cognitive decline, experts say.
High blood sugar could put you at higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia even if you don’t have fully developed diabetes.
Lower levels of blood sugar, on the other hand, are associated with better brain health, according to a new study from researchers at University College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
The study, published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, suggests that keeping blood sugar in the normal range is important for preventing cognitive decline and dementia.
The researchers reported that people diagnosed with prediabetes — generally defined as having A1C levels of 5.7 to 6.4 percent — are 54 percent more likely to develop vascular dementia than people with normal blood sugar levels (less than 5.7 percent).
That’s lower than the threefold risk of vascular dementia among people with diabetes (A1C of 6.5 percent or higher), but it’s still significant, said Victoria Garfield, PhD, the lead study author and a research fellow in genetic epidemiology at University College London’s Institute of Cardiovascular Science.
“Based on previous research and now our own findings… we can certainly say that prediabetes is a high-risk state for people to be in and that we now know that it is certainly associated with greater risk of cognitive decline and vascular dementia, in particular,” Garfield told Healthline.
Source: healthline