Someone on Facebook posted this link and I was curious what everyone thought of this?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/10/alzheimers-junk-food-catastrophic-effect
Would it really be considered another form of diabetes? I thought that Diabetes meant having elevated sugar levels, rather than the lower insulin levels in the brain..
In the DOC (diabetes online community), "type 3" has long been used to refer to a family member or loved one of someone who was dealing with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. For example a nondiabetic mother or father of a type 1 child could be termed as having "type 3" in a term-of-endearment sort of way. We have many "type 3s" here in the community (w/ regard to this definition).
In the scientific medical community, however, "type 3" has been used in some circles to identify Alzheimer's because of the issue involving insulin and IGF resistance in the brain (hence, the 'connection' to diabetes).
This article is poorly written at best. The author seems to take to causal relationships and link the together to reach his hypothesis. A causal relationship occurs when we see two things are related, but are often not sure why. Like, saying the Earth is flat because we cannot find a corner.
The author weakly links “junk food” to obesity and obesity to type 2 diabetes. As most of likely know, obesity is a risk factor for T2. There is no cause and effect. The author further links T2 diabetes to Alzheimers (which is explained so poorly I doubt he understands it.) Now link them all together = “Junk food” causes Alzheimers. As you can imagine, I am quite skeptical.
Further, if an auther defines things like this, “Type 2 diabetes is caused by excessive blood glucose, resulting either from a deficiency of insulin produced by the pancreas, or resistance to its signals by the organs that would usually take up the glucose.” FTFA. At this point he either just does not understand what he is talking about or is trying to mislead his audience.
Futher, this quote, “Plenty of research still needs to be done. But, if the current indications are correct, Alzheimer’s disease could be another catastrophic impact of the junk food industry, and the worst discovered so far.” Leads me to believe that this article is interested in political changes.
I certainly believe that an individual’s diet could play into weather they develop dementia, but I have huge concerns with the author’s ascertations.
I read the article earlier. There are some interesting points, mixed with plenty of speculation. Diabetes does not mean "having elevated sugars". The term for that is hyperglycemia. The article mentions the brain's inability to use insulin, which is something else.
PWD are at risk for a lot of brain problems. Many of us suffer from chronic depression, memory loss, etc. I am glad for any work being done to better understand how this works.