A study conducted by overweight people with diabetes shows that controlling blood sugar levels helps preserve cognitive abilities.
- In overweight people with diabetes, controlling blood sugar levels, combined with diet and exercise, helps preserve cognitive abilities.
- In contrast, in obese people, diet and exercise show mixed results. According to the researchers, this is explained by the overcoming of a “point of no return from a cognitive point of view”.
Affecting nearly 3.3 million people in France, or 5% of the population, type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease characterized by an abnormally high level of sugar in the blood. Caused by a deficit of insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, and which naturally regulates the level of glucose present in the blood, type 2 diabetes requires glycemic control several times a day, to adapt the doses of insulin and thus avoiding hyperglycaemia which can, in certain cases, be fatal.
According to a new study from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center and published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolismmonitoring your blood sugar level is also essential for your cognitive health.
“It is important to have good control of your blood sugar level to avoid the bad effects of diabetes on the brain.says Professor Owen Carmichael, director of biomedical imaging at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Don’t think you can just drift into obesity, lose some weight, and be fine with your brain. The brain may have already taken a turn from which it cannot turn away.”
Improved cognition
To study the effects of high blood sugar on cognitive abilities, the researchers followed 1,100 volunteers. For a year, a group of participants modified their diet and physical activity through a personalized program designed for each of them to lose 7% of their weight and maintain that weight loss. The other group was simply invited to participate in three sessions per year which focused on diet, physical activity and social support. Cognitive tests (tests of thinking, learning and memory) were carried out between 8 and 13 years after the start of the study.
The researchers initially hypothesized that people with improved blood sugar levels, physical activity and weight loss would perform better on cognitive tests. In reality, only lowering blood sugar levels actually improved test results. “Every small improvement in blood sugar control was associated with a small improvement in cognition.”notes Owen Carmichael.
A “point of no return” for the brain
In contrast, weight loss and exercise did not always increase cognitive test scores. People who lost more weight improved their skills in executive functions: short-term memory, planning, impulse control, attention, and the ability to switch between tasks. However, their verbal learning and overall memory declined.
“Results were worse for people who were obese at the start of the study”relates Owen Carmichael, who believes that “people with diabetes who have let their obesity go too far, for too long, may have passed the point of no return, cognitively.”.
Converselyincreased physical activity generated more benefits for people who were overweight and therefore not suffering from obesity.
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