By Bob DeMarco Alzheimer’s Reading Room This research interests me. First, my mother’s triglycerides have been high for at least 20 years. Of all the doctors we had, not a single one has ever suggested medication. In addition, my sister has diabetes. On top of the that, my mother’s mother had diabetes and died at a young age. I have also mentioned previously how my mother started scraping her feet on the ground about ten years ago. Next, she started walking slower and slower. Finally, when I first came to Delray Beach my mother was falling down often. Once she fell and broke her finger. Another time I found her lying in the parking lot and she was unable to get up. She was shaking like a leaf. Older adults with diabetes who have high blood pressure, walk slowly or lose their balance, or believe they’re in bad health, are significantly more likely to have weaker memory and slower, more rigid cognitive processing than those without these problems, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association. These three health factors stood out from more than a dozen suspected to shape how Type 2 diabetes is frequently shadowed by cognitive impairment, including dementia. An analysis in September’s Neuropsychology stresses that although these factors might not actually cause cognitive problems, their presence can warn doctors that such problems may exist or soon develop. “Awareness of the link between diabetes and cognition could help people realize how important it is to manage this disease–and to motivate them to do so,” said co-author Roger Dixon, PhD, of the University of Alberta. Type 2 diabetes has been found by other researchers to nearly double the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, said Dixon, who studies how health affects cognition in aging. As diabetes becomes more common, this heightened risk could dramatically hike the number of older people with dementia – a double whammy of serious chronic disease. Among people older than 60, the U.S. prevalence of Type 2 diabetes is more than 23 percent, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive & Kidney Diseases. The Canadian prevalence is nearly 19 percent, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada

Original Source of Type 2 Diabetes, Gait, Balance and High Blood Pressure Linked to Alzheimer’s and Dementia