Originally published January 1 2006
Study discovers Alzheimer's is a new form of diabetes
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease has published a study by researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown Medical School that suggests Alzheimer's is a severe form of diabetes.
Researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown Medical School have discovered that insulin and its receptors drop significantly in the brain during the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, and that levels decline progressively as the disease becomes more severe, leading to further evidence that Alzheimer's is a new type of diabetes.
They also found that acetylcholine deficiency, a hallmark of the disease, is linked directly to the loss of insulin and insulin-like growth factor function in the brain.
"Insulin disappears early and dramatically in Alzheimer's disease.
And many of the unexplained features of Alzheimer's, such as cell death and tangles in the brain, appear to be linked to abnormalities in insulin signaling.
This demonstrates that the disease is most likely a neuroendocrine disorder, or another type of diabetes," says senior author Suzanne de la Monte, a neuropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and a professor of pathology at Brown Medical School in Providence, R.I.
They found that with increasing severity of the disease, levels of insulin receptors and the brain's ability to respond to insulin decreased markedly.
First, insulin levels decline as the disease progresses.
Second, insulin and its related protein IGF-I lose their ability to bind to corresponding cell receptors, creating a resistance to the growth factors and thus causing cells to malfunction and eventually die.
"If you could target the disease early, you could prevent the further loss of neurons.
But you would have to target not just the loss of insulin but the resistance of its receptors in the brain."
Researchers also offer an explanation for the acetylcholine deficiency that is linked to dementia and has long been recognized as an early abnormality in Alzheimer's.
This discovery shows a direct link between insulin and IGF-I deficiency and dementia.
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