Diabetes & Alzheimer's Disease: What's the Link?

With the prevalence of diabetes & obesity increasing exponentially, I've been trying over & over to encourage my sedentary patients to become more active by pointing out studies demonstrating mortality benefit and lower risk of diabetes.  If that hasn't convinced you yet, how about a new study just published concluding that insulin resistance may be a marker of Alzheimer's disease risk, even before the onset of mild cognitive impairment.

The authors examined 23 patients w/either pre-diabetes or undiagnosed diabetes compared to 6 euglycemic participants with positron emission tomography (PET) scan and noted that greater insulin resistance was associated with an Alzheimer's disease-like pattern in patients with either pre-diabetes or actual diabetes.

Other studies have already demonstrated that insulin resistance increases one's risk for developing Alzheimer's disease.  What this study adds is the pathophysiology in terms of a disease risk marker that might someday be used to predict future development before onset.  In the meantime, there's no reason why we can't use this study as yet another reason to become physically active to minimize our insulin resistance.