Brain plaque deposits are the common cause of Dementia, but a new study shows that for Diabetes patients, the reason is vascular anomalies.

   The researchers at the Mayo Clinic's Florida campus and the University of California, San Francisco compared the ratios of two different types of amyloid beta proteins in blood samples from 211 people with dementia and 403 others without dementia.

   Neurologist Dr. Neill Graff-Radford concludes in a Mayo Clinic news release that "This helps in understanding diabetes and dementia. It suggests that the vascular dementia seen in diabetics, which appears to be related to small blood vessel disease and strokes, can potentially be averted if development of diabetes is prevented.".

   Previous autopsy studies on people with diabetes and dementia revealed that vascular abnormalities were related to dementia, but not to the plaques and tangles characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. The authors noted that those autopsy reports are inline with their study results in the news release. Previous studies have also shown significant improvement in dementia in diabetes subjects, with comprehensive management in diabetes..