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High blood sugar linked to increased dementia risk
August 08, 2013
Dementia risk appears to be higher among people with elevated blood glucose levels.
People with high blood sugar may face an increase in their risk of dementia, even if they do not have diabetes, a study has found.
US researchers studied data on more than 2,000 people, aged 65 and older, and found that diabetics with an average glucose level of 190mg/dl over a five-year period were 40 percent more likely to develop dementia than those with an average level of 160mg/dl.
However, even people who did not have diabetes still had an increased likelihood of developing dementia if their blood sugar levels were raised.
For instance, the risk of dementia was 18 percent higher for those with an average level of 115mg/dl than for those whose levels averaged out at just 100mg/dl.
"The most interesting finding was that every incrementally higher glucose level was associated with a higher risk of dementia in people who did not have diabetes," said study author Dr Paul Crane, from the University of Washington and Group Health Research Institute in the US.
Dr Crane, whose findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine, added that there was no lower threshold for glucose values where the risk of dementia levelled off.
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