I try to not be an alarmist because there are plenty of demagogues out there who are happy to make you afraid of something, but the truth is there are a lot of alarming developments in the world of health.
When I peruse my news stream on Facebook I don’t really see people discussing the topics that worry me, instead I see a lot of talk about sports teams, TV shows, and celebrities.
So, every now and then I’ll try to increase public awareness of something that I find particularly worrying.
What’s on the agenda today? Alzheimer’s disease. Generally, I think this disease frightens people more than most because of the especially sinister nature of it’s symptoms. Memory loss, confusion, mood changes, and a general lack of mental capacity. A loved one may go on living, but they’re just not quite the same person they used to be anymore.
According to some projections made from the previous U.S. census (2000), by the year 2050 the number of persons with Alzheimer’s disease in the U.S. will increase by almost 3-fold to 13.2 million, from the current levels of around 4.5 million. However, I think it’s possible that those numbers could turn out to be even higher based on some other health trends.
So, what causes Alzheimer’s disease? The most likely theory is that amyloid proteins build up in the brain tissues, developing into plaques and damaging the neural connections. This along with other damage to vascular tissue like strokes is believed to be a serious contributor to the development of the disease. So, what allows these amyloid protein plaques to build up in the brain?
Well, there is a particular enzyme (called insulin-degrading enzyme) whose job is to break down these proteins so they don’t become a problem. Unfortunately, it’s also used to clear out insulin from brain tissues as well, and if it’s presented with both insulin and amyloid proteins, insulin will take priority. If you have chronically elevated levels of insulin, your levels of amyloid proteins in your brain will also increase since nothing is being done to remove them.
Can you imagine a health scenario where somebody has increasingly high levels of insulin? How about type 2 diabetes, and more generally metabolic syndrome.
Prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. via the American Diabetes Association:
Total: 25.8 million children and adults in the United States—8.3% of the population—have diabetes.
Diagnosed: 18.8 million people
Undiagnosed: 7.0 million people
Prediabetes: 79 million people
New Cases: 1.9 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in people aged 20 years and older in 2010.
According to the brilliant Dr. Emily Deans, “Folks with type 2 diabetes have twice the risk of developing Alzheimer’s, and diabetics on insulin therapy have four times the risk.”
Based on those numbers from the ADA, we have a lot of people who will be at risk of developing alzheimer’s disease. Our health care industry is already imploding under the pressure from dealing with skyrocketing numbers of diabetics and complications from obesity. One might say caring for somebody with severe dementia could be even more costly, since normal daily activities become difficult to handle.
I think the most alarming possibility out of all of this, is that since people (children) are contracting type 2 diabetes at ever earlier ages, they might soon begin developing alzheimer’s disease at earlier ages as well. Type 2 diabetes is generally referred to as adult onset diabetes mellitus, but since children now come down with it it might as well have it’s name changed.
Alzheimer’s, generally thought of as a disease of the aged, might it soon become a disease of middle-age?
Below is a video excerpt from an interview with Gary Taubes, where he discusses the impact of high insulin levels on degenerative diseases such as cancer, Alzheimers and heart disease. It’s worth watching.
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