Alzheimer’s May Be Type of Diabetes

Insulin Study Backs Theory Alzheimer’s May Be Type of Diabetes

Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) — Alzheimer’s disease researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown Medical School said they found more evidence that the condition may be a new type of diabetes, or insulin deficiency, specific to the brain.

The researchers discovered a “significant” drop in levels of insulin and insulin receptors in the brains of patients who had early stage Alzheimer’s and died, according to a study released today. The scientists reported earlier this year that they’d found lower levels in patients with advanced Alzheimer’s.

Without insulin, the brain is unable to make acetylcholine, a chemical that carries signals among neurons and helps in the thinking process, according to researcher Suzanne de la Monte, a neuropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital.

“If you don’t have the insulin, or the brain cells don’t respond” to it, the cells will die, de la Monte said in a Nov. 28 telephone interview. “The race is to keep them supported at the time they’re deteriorating.”

The research suggests that one way to slow the onset of Alzheimer’s might be a treatment that improves the brain cells’ use of insulin, de la Monte said. Before the findings can be applied, scientists must first determine a way to identify insulin deficiency or insulin resistance in the brains of living patients, she said.

For this study, which is being published in the November issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, the researchers drew on a brain bank for a postmortem study of the brains of about 50 Alzheimer’s patients.

Conventional diabetes is diagnosed by measuring blood glucose levels, blood insulin levels and how the body manages high levels of sugar, said de la Monte, who is also a pathology professor at Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island. Different organs can react in varying ways to insulin.

Most patients with Alzheimer’s don’t have diabetes, and there is no evidence that diabetes patients have a higher risk for Alzheimer’s, de la Monte said.

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