From: houndpup23x@gmail.com   
      
   Is Alzheimer's Type 3 Diabetes?    
      
   By MARK BITTMAN    
   SEPTEMBER 25, 2012    
      
      
   Just in case you need another reason to cut back on junk food, it now turns   
   out that Alzheimer's could well be a form of diet-induced diabetes. That's the   
   bad news. The good news is that laying off soda, doughnuts, processed meats   
   and fries could allow    
   you to keep your mind intact until your body fails you.    
      
   We used to think there were two types of diabetes: the type you're born with   
   (Type 1) and the type you "get." That's called Type 2, and was called "adult   
   onset" until it started ravaging kids. Type 2 is brought about by a   
   combination of factors,    
   including overeating, American-style.    
      
   The idea that Alzheimer's might be Type 3 diabetes has been around since 2005,   
   but the connection between poor diet and Alzheimer's is becoming more   
   convincing, as summarized in a cover story in New Scientist entitled "Food for   
   Thought: What You Eat May    
   Be Killing Your Brain." (The graphic -- a chocolate brain with a huge piece   
   missing -- is creepy. But for the record: chocolate is not the enemy.)    
      
   The studies [1] are increasingly persuasive, and unsurprising when you   
   understand the role of insulin in the body. So, a brief lesson.    
      
   We all need insulin: in non-diabetics, it's released to help cells take in the   
   blood sugar (glucose) they need for energy. But the cells can hold only so   
   much; excess sugar is first stored as glycogen, and -- when there's enough of   
   that -- as fat. (Blood    
   sugar doesn't come only from sugar, but from carbohydrates of all kinds;   
   easily digested carbohydrates flood the bloodstream with sugar.) Insulin not   
   only keeps the blood vessels that supply the brain healthy, it also encourages   
   the brain's neurons to    
   absorb glucose, and allows those neurons to change and become stronger. Low   
   insulin levels in the brain mean reduced brain function.    
      
   Type 1 diabetes, in which the immune system destroys insulin-producing cells   
   in the pancreas, accounts for about 10 percent of all cases. Type 2 diabetes   
   is chronic or environmental, and it's especially prevalent in populations that   
   overconsume    
   hyperprocessed foods, like ours. It's tragically, increasingly common -- about   
   a third of Americans have diabetes or pre-diabetes -- and treatable but   
   incurable. It causes your cells to fail to retrieve glucose from the blood,   
   either because your    
   pancreas isn't producing enough insulin or the body's cells ignore that   
   insulin. (That's "insulin resistance"; stand by.)    
      
   Put as simply as possible (in case your eyes glaze over as quickly as mine   
   when it comes to high school biology), insulin "calls" your cells, asking them   
   to take glucose from the bloodstream: "Yoo-hoo. Pick this stuff up!"    
      
   When the insulin calls altogether too often -- as it does when you drink   
   sugar-sweetened beverages and repeatedly eat junk food -- the cells are   
   overwhelmed, and say, "Leave me alone." They become resistant. This makes the   
   insulin even more insistent and,   
    to make matters worse, all those elevated insulin levels are bad for your   
   blood vessels.    
      
   Diabetes causes complications too numerous to mention, but they include heart   
   disease, which remains our No. 1 killer. And when the cells in your brain   
   become insulin-resistant, you start to lose memory and become disoriented. You   
   even might lose aspects    
   of your personality.    
      
   In short, it appears, you develop Alzheimer's.    
      
   A neuropathologist named Alois Alzheimer noticed, over a century ago, that an   
   odd form of protein was taking the place of normal brain cells. How those beta   
   amyloid plaques (as they're called) get there has been a mystery. What's   
   becoming clear, however,    
   is that a lack of insulin -- or insulin resistance -- not only impairs   
   cognition but seems to be implicated in the formation of those plaques.   
      
   Suzanne de la Monte, a neuropathologist at Brown University, has been working   
   on these phenomena in humans and rats. When she blocked the path of insulin to   
   rats' brains, their neurons deteriorated, they became physically disoriented   
   and their brains    
   showed all the signs of Alzheimer's. The fact that Alzheimer's can be   
   associated with low levels of insulin in the brain is the reason why   
   increasing numbers of researchers have taken to calling it Type 3 diabetes, or   
   diabetes of the brain.[2]    
      
   Let's connect the dots: We know that the American diet is a fast track not   
   only to obesity but to Type 2 diabetes and other preventable, non-communicable   
   diseases, which now account for more deaths worldwide than all other causes   
   combined.    
      
   We also already know that people with diabetes are at least twice as likely to   
   get Alzheimer's, and that obesity alone increases the risk of impaired brain   
   function.    
      
   What's new is the thought that while diabetes doesn't "cause" Alzheimer's,   
   they have the same root: an over consumption of those "foods" that mess with   
   insulin's many roles. (Genetics have an effect on susceptibility, as they   
   appear to with all    
   environmental diseases.) "Sugar is clearly implicated," says Dr. de la Monte,   
   "but there could be other factors as well, including nitrates in food."    
      
   If the rate of Alzheimer's rises in lockstep with Type 2 diabetes, which has   
   nearly tripled in the United States in the last 40 years, we will shortly see   
   a devastatingly high percentage of our population with not only failing bodies   
   but brains. Even for    
   the lucky ones this is terrible news, because 5.4 million Americans (nearly 2   
   percent, for those keeping score at home) have the disease, the care for which   
   -- along with other dementias -- will cost around $200 billion this year.    
      
   Gee. That's more than the $150 billion we've been saying we spend annually on   
   obesity-related illnesses. So the financial cost of the obesity pandemic just   
   more than doubled. More than 115 million new cases of Alzheimer's are   
   projected around the world    
   in the next 40 years, and the cost is expected to rise to more than a trillion   
   of today's dollars. (Why bother to count? $350 billion is bad enough.)    
      
   The link between diet and dementia negates our notion of Alzheimer's as a   
   condition that befalls us by chance. Adopting a sane diet, a diet contrary to   
   the standard American diet (which I like to refer to as SAD), would appear to   
   give you a far better    
   shot at avoiding diabetes in all of its forms, along with its dreaded   
   complications. There are, as usual, arguments to be made for enlisting   
   government help in that struggle, but for now, put down that soda!    
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)