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Alzheimer's Could Be a Third Form of Diabetes
Atzanteol writes "Insulin, it turns out, may be as important for the mind as it is for the body. Research in the last few years has raised the possibility that Alzheimer's memory loss could be due to a novel third form of diabetes. Scientists at Northwestern University have discovered why brain insulin signaling — crucial for memory formation — would stop working in Alzheimer's disease."
What was I doing?
Be conscientious!!
:-)
Suggestions for who is at risk follow....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
At Best Buy the other day (hate the store, but no Fry's around here), saw that they were selling "Alzheimer" brand memory sticks.
While I understand (upon doing a double take and inspecting the package) that it is meant to support an Alzheimer association, I can't help but think that it's not a good marketing combination.
That said, I have diabetes from one grandfather and Alzheimers from my grandma, both of my dad's parents... crap.
As a developer and student, I consume eight liters of Mountain Dew a day and I have no diabetes problems.
You're not a developer and student, that was 60 years ago. It's now 2067.
I thought that it was not sugar so much as Phenylalanine
The way I've heard it, "Diet" versions of soft drinks are more likely to cause the onset of Type-B (adult) diabetes, through their containing aspartame and other sugar substitutes which can in the long term affect the way you process sugars.
Who knows? There's a warning on all drinks that contain a source of phenylalanine, in the UK at least.
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
Currently, there are a number of trials of therapies that target amyloid ß proteins. Some are on the verge of phase III testing approval by the FDA. We may soon be looking at the end of Alzheimer's as a life destroying disease.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I've heard rumours that smoking drives down the possibility
of brain-related diseases (alzheimers(sp?), parkinsons).
Anyone care to comment?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Technically, wouldn't Alzheimer's be the Fourth type of Diabetes.
Type 1, Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (alias "Juvenile Diabetes")
Type 2, Non-Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (alias "adult-onset diabetes")
(Type 3) Gestational Diabetes
(Type 4, implied by TFA) Alzheimer's
As a side note, this comment was posted by a Type 1 diabetic.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I'm actively trying to avoid the stuff for some time now, but wow: it's almost everywhere! Even in some yogurts..
;D
Minimized sugar intake in general as well.. and I'm haven't had a cup of coffee since May... and I'm still productive as a programmer.
After the initial, small withdrawal symptoms I'm feeling lot better too. My focus is sharper and I'm feeling more creative too.
That's like saying "I smoke 20 a day, and I don't have cancer" ... yet. But you have increased your risk of getting it. A lot.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Nah! You just *think* you are ;-)
Sez Dave, who also hasn't touched coffee for a while but drinks gallons of tea instead.Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
You are confusing 'anecdote' with 'data'. They are two vastly different things.
Haha, "New friends every day." Get it?! LOL.
It's not so funny when it happens to you or your family. Wait until someone you know gets it. You won't be laughing anymore.
Haha, that guy has a limp. Haha, that woman is blind. Haha, that kid is retarded. Hahaha. Fucking hilarious.
Whatever you do, don't get Alzheimer's disease. It sucks.
My grandmother just turned 94 and has advanced Alzheimer's disease. She can barely walk anymore. I devote a few hours of my life every single day to caregiving. If you've never known someone like this, you really have no idea what's involved. Yeah, we could put her in a home. We could watch her die sooner that way, wearing diapers and ceaselessly, hopelessly calling out for someone to please take her home. As it is now, she wears diapers, but at least we always change them. In nursing homes, they don't.
Have you ever had someone you know and love, who helped raise you and even changed *your* diapers and then helped teach you how to count and how to read and how to do puzzles and math and typing and how to play games, who taught you the names of the plants that grow out in the back yard? And now she can smile and say "Hello", and tell you to get the hell out because she don't know who you are a moment later?
That's Alzheimer's. You can be helping to manage her most intimate financial affairs completely honestly, you can be doing her laundry and getting her medicine and bringing her groceries and cooking her meals and washing her dishes and vacuuming her floors and helping her get to the doctor and even wiping her ass, when she cannot do it herself anymore, and yet she'll still tell you she loves you one night, and the next morning she wants you to go away, go to hell, or just please, please take her home. Because she doesn't know what home means anymore. She's already at home, and she doesn't know who you are anymore.
She knows what she knew in 1920 or 1930 sometimes, funny stories she can still tell sometimes, but she mixes up everyone's names; she doesn't know who is who anymore. She used to speak three languages, English, German, and French. But now she often speaks gibberish, a weird combination of whatever words she still can recall. She can't always understand simple sentences. She's like a kid who cannot learn.
Alzheimer's sucks; nursing homes suck. Go visit one someday if you doubt me. My grandmother's genes and her circumstances allowed her to outlive two of her children. She never got cancer, but that's what killed her elder son at 50. She had a heart attack thirty years ago, but she didn't die of heart disease. That's what killed her elder daughter at 60. Yet my grandmother lives on, as her mind slowly disintegrates.
She still likes to watch children playing, or to meet a drooling baby, maybe a child of someone who helps care for her, brought over to visit. She still likes to pet her cats and smile and watch them roll on the floor with catnip at her feet, she still can interface with her two grandchildren, she still has a sense of humor that we all can understand and sometimes laugh about together.
She doesn't know what year it is or what day it is, and sometimes she can't remember how to properly hold a spoon (or she'll try drinking from it like a straw). But she especially likes bananas and squash and sweet potatoes and chocolate chip cookies. I know this because I'm there sometimes to remind her to take another bite. She says "This is good, thank you!"
And sometimes when you help lift her into bed at night, she'll tell you she loves you. I guess that helps make it all worthwhile.
Anyway, this is what will happen to you if you don't die of anything else or get hit by a bus before your brain starts to degrade. I suppose it hasn't been all bad, I have learned a lot caring for my grandmother. But she is no longer able to offer her opinion. [yeah, it's my own copypasta, but it's relevant]
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
There's a warning on all drinks that contain a source of phenylalanine, in the UK at least.
The warning's in the US too. The reason for it is because of a genetic mutation that makes some people unable to metabolize the stuff properly, otherwise, it's considered an essential amino acid, although it's primary role in humans is to produce tyrosine, which could be obtained directly from diet.
The warning are for people who react bad on phenylalanine, the reason most people react weird on sugarfree stuff are probably do to the sugar alcohols thought which makes your stomach and guts act weird =P (I can't understand why that shit is use, something like 240 kcal/100g compared to 420 of sugar but it's less sweet so it probably have around the same sweetness/kcal. Sure it's better for your teeths but who cares.)
I doubt aspartame affect it, it doesn't raise insulin levels, acesulfame-k does if I remember right and they both come together. But it still doesn't do it close to what real carbs would do.
Fructose metabolism skips one step in the body somehow so that's not good for it atleast, so all that high fructose corn syrup you americans have in your soft drinks won't help. Sure there are some fructose in fruits aswell (together with regular saccarose and glucose) but atleast then you get other good stuff aswell with it. So I don't suggest not eating fruit because some of the sugars aren't that great, but why eat the sugar alone?
I switched to herbal teas. if you want a stimulant some out there make the best strong coffee look like baby formula in strength. if you only consume stimulant in the AM only, cut off all use after 10am you will be fine. Being mostly sugar free is easy. the only places where I cheat is pure maple syrup, Honey, Mead, and Hard Cider.. the real stuff(9-10% alcohol) not the girly cider you get in the stores. Honestly one of the better things you can do as well is any grains you eat, only eat whole grains. upping your fiber intake helps quite a bit as well. a single 100% whole wheat slice of bread with 100% natural peanut butter can tide you over for hours. while the sugar crap peanut-butter and white bread will need 4 slices in 2 sandwiches to give you the same energy dosage after the sugar is burned.
Finally coffee is not a bad thing. if you think you have to have a pound of sugar and a quart of cream in your coffee then you are drinking bad coffee. unsweetened black coffee can be an incredibly pleasurable experience. find some roasted cocoa beans to add to the grounds as well and it become and incredible drink.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Are you that misinformed about the disease...its like saying i slept with
150 women already, so there is no aids if i didnt get it yet....talk about ignorant.
Good news though: it is the year of Linux on the desktop.
"I thought that it was not sugar so much as Phenylalanine"
The theory I have heard that makes the most sense is "high fructose corn syrup". 20 years ago Coke switched from sugar to this crap. The whole Coke/New Coke/Classic Coke marketing ploy was used to make the switch with few noticing (we were so glad to get our old coke back, we did not pay attention). Most other soft drink producers, and many other junk food manufacturers, did the same. It was much cheaper. Fructose does not trigger insulin the same way regular sugar does, causing a lot of glucose to build up in your blood. It also metabolizes quickly, sending your blood sugar through the roof within minutes of consumption.
The current Diabetes epidemic tracks this massive change in our diets almost perfectly. Give it 20 years, people get older, exercise less, the cumulative effects take hold and wham.
I almost never drank diet soda, primarily just Classic Coke. Not ridiculous quantities, but 2-3 cans a day was pretty normal. Mix that with a Snickers, ice cream, pasta, etc. In my late 30s I tried to lose weight by avoiding fat, but that pretty much leads to a high carb diet (unless you just eat rabbit food). By 40 (I am now 44) the symptoms started showing up, but I mostly ignored them.
One night I was out drinking with some coworkers, one noticed I was drinking water by the pitcher and we started talking. He was diabetic (not surprisingly another programmer who led a similar life to many of us) and had a glucometer. He measured my blood glucose and almost fell over. I had 520 mg/dl (80-120 is normal).
I am pretty sure that there is no one "smoking gun", but high fructose corn syrup sure seems a likely major factor. At least for me and many others. Especially considering the massive spike in cases, and the 15-20 year correlation to the massive introduction of HFCS to our diets.
If I can give a couple pieces of advice to the 20-somethings on this forum:
- You are not invincible. Bad habits will catch up with you in one way or another. Whether it is diabetes, heart problems, etc., it will get you. All the stock option bonanzas in the world won't save you either. Look around your office at the 40 somethings. Lots of fat and lazy folks. They were just like you 20 years ago!!!
- Get into an exercise habit, and stick with it. It does not have to be a formal plan or involve going to the gym, but walking or biking to work, the store (or the bar), parking at the back of the parking lot, etc. will all help. Going for a walk after eating is really good, as it is working off what you just shoved down your throat and speeds up your metabolism. It helps the environment too.
- Moderation is the key to food consumption. I don't advocate dropping all the good stuff, that gets too boring and you will likely not stick with it. Have your favorites, but get smaller portions and go for a walk afterwards.
I still love my DQ, but I only get it from the DQ 3 miles from my house, I get a small dish, and I ride my bike there. I still drink beer, but I only have 2 or 3 (instead of 7 or 8), and I ride my bike there too. I skip fries and have a salad instead. Have a coke, but then alternate with water or coffee instead of another coke. Get the can of coke, instead of the 20 oz or Big Gulp (forget about the price advantage, long-term that is a fallacy when you consider your health costs). All the little steps help, as long as there are lots of little things to have a cumulative effect, and you do it all (or at least most) of the time.
I will be living with this the rest of my shortened life. I will say though, it scared the the hell out of me, and I am now in as good a shape as I was 20 years ago, and way better than 10 years ago. I feel fucking great. I have more energy than I got from caffeine and sugar. I am just pissed off at myself for getting into this situation. I can't go back and change it, the damage is done. All I can do is contain it, and make it not get much worse. Hopefully I can help at least one person avoid my fate with this rant.
The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon - Douglas William Jerrold
Has anyone noticed that the "larding of America" started in the early 1980's? That's right around the time that high-fructose corn syrup was introduced into soft drinks. Since about 1985, nearly all non-diet soft drinks marketed in the US contain HFCS as their sweetener, because of quotas and tariffs on sugar. In addition, it's found in a wide variety of baked goods and other processed foods.
Because of the influence and greed of the industrial farming lobby (ADM and friends), and despite numerous studies that show that HFCS is harmful, Americans continue to be subjected to this stuff in most of what they eat and drink.
It makes me sick. Literally.
Ask your doctor if getting up off your ass is right for you! -- Bill Maher
That's like saying "I smoke 20 a day, and I don't have cancer"
And people survived trench warfare. That is no reason to throw a mustard gas party.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Good job!
If people knew more about caffeine, they wouldn't drink it in such concentrated amounts, like, ever. Some people here know its chemical structure, but that's not nearly enough to claim to be educated about it.
Here's how it works. Your brain gets energy by breaking down ATP and ADP, just like every other system. Eventually, it ends up with a bunch of free adenosine floating about (that's the "A" in ATP), which binds to adenosine neuroreceptors. This binding has an inhibitory action on the synapse - that is, it tends to keep all but the strongest signals from getting across. This is what makes your brain feel tired and less functional after working it for a long time.
Caffeine works by binding to the same receptors but not having the same effect. (It's an "adenosine antagonist".) It doesn't directly make you think better - the buzz is physiological, from other effects - it just keeps you alert and functioning, even when you ought to be tired.
Here's the problem: when you ingest a significant amount and antagonize adenosine receptors too much, the brain re-regulates by exposing more receptors. Whoops! Those four cups of coffee just aren't doing it for you anymore... better make it five... Eventually, you can't function properly without it, and you'll need it just to feel normal. Ceasing caffeine intake is the only way to get back, and there will be a nasty withdrawal period while you wait for your brain to figure out that it's got too many adenosine receptors and re-regulate again.
I'm not touching the stuff. It's probably fine for an all-nighter or two every once in a while, but not for daily consumption.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
I hear they're about to release Duke Nukem Forever ...
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
- Moderation is the key to food consumption. I don't advocate dropping all the good stuff, that gets too boring and you will likely not stick with it. Have your favorites, but get smaller portions and go for a walk afterwards. Best advice going and would put the diet industry out of business if people were smart enough to follow it.
cheers
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
Privatized healthcare without proper regulations and that's what you get. Healthcare should NOT be an industry governed by corporations trying to profit from the sick and the elderly. Patients and workers are number one, not investors.