4. High Blood Sugar levels Linked to Memory Decline

A study, done by researchers at Columbia University Medical Centre reports that the spikes in blood sugar levels can badly affect memory by affecting the dentate gyrus, an area of the brain within the hippocampus that helps form memories.

Researchers said the effects could be observed even when levels of blood sugar, or glucose, are only moderately elevated. This is a finding that may help explain normal age-related cognitive decline, since glucose regulation worsens with age.

“If we conclude this is underlying normal age-related cognitive decline, then it affects all of us,” said lead investigator Dr. Scott Small, associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Centre. The ability to regulate glucose starts deteriorating by the third or fourth decade of life, he added.

Since glucose regulation is improved with physical activity, Dr. Small said, “We have a behavioural recommendation — physical exercise.”

In the study, researchers used high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging to map brain regions in 240 elderly subjects. They found a correlation between elevated blood glucose levels and reduced cerebral blood volume, or blood flow, in the dentate gyrus, an indication of reduced metabolic activity and function in that region of the brain.
Sheri Colberg-Ochs, an associate professor of exercise science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., said her research has found that regular exercise, even light physical activity, can offset the potentially negative effects of Type 2 diabetes on cognitive function. “This new study is interesting in that it allows for a greater understanding of which region of the hippocampus is likely most affected by poorly controlled diabetes,” she said. But the elevations in blood glucose seen in the new study are more subtle and would not be considered a disease state, Dr. Small said.
“It’s part of the normal process of aging, much like wrinkling of skin,” he said. “It happens to all of us inexorably, and it worsens progressively across the life span.”
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