Pre-Diabetic Condition Linked to Memory Loss

Pre-Diabetic Condition Linked to Memory Loss
Excerpt By Alison McCook, Reuter's Health
Prevent Disease.com

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Middle-aged and older adults with a condition that often precedes diabetes appear to show signs of memory loss not visible in their peers without the condition, researchers announced Monday.

In addition, people with insulin resistance--a loss of sensitivity to this key blood-sugar-regulating hormone--tended to have a relatively small hippocampus, a region in the brain associated with short-term memory.

"This (finding) might give baby boomers a motivation to get off their couches and on their treadmills," said Dr. Antonio Convit of New York University and the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in Orangeburg, New York.

Although insulin resistance commonly results from excess weight and lack of exercise, most people who have the condition don't know it, and may consider themselves to be perfectly healthy, Convit told Reuters Health.

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