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Type 2 diabetes is the most common type of diabetes. The disease can be inherited or result from a poor lifestyle, improper diet and lack of physical activity. She is overweight and obese. It usually affects middle-aged and elderly people, but for some time there have been more and more cases of the disease among young people and even children.
What is the disease?
Type 2 diabetes characterized by the fact that the body produces too little insulin through the pancreas, which additionally works incorrectly. This is the so-called insulin resistance, i.e. reduced sensitivity of tissues to insulin. There is then an increase in blood sugar levels. The disease is so insidious that it does not show any visible symptoms at first and can only be diagnosed by a blood sugar test. Left untreated, it can wreak havoc on your blood vessels.
Diabetes and the aging process
Recently, American scientists conducted a study that showed that the brain of diabetics in old age ages on average 5 years earlier than in the case of their healthy peers. This would mean that, for example, a sixty-year-old person with diabetes exhibits the cognitive abilities of a sixty-five-year-old. This is to follow:
- from too high blood glucose levels, i.e. hyperglycemia, which damages tissues and organs, including blood vessels that transport blood to the brain. The latter damage causes microstrokes, and as a result, hypoxia of a given part of the brain,
- from states of hypoglycaemia, i.e. hypoglycaemia, to which diabetics are exposed by an inadequately selected dose of pharmacological agents they take due to the disease. The body then gradually gets used to the shortage of sugar and does not send clear signals of this.
Diabetics are therefore at greater risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in old age than people without the disease.
Diabetes and cognitive processes
Based on many years of research, scientists have also put forward a thesis that hyperglycemia reduces the cognitive abilities of diabetics by about 19%. Their ability to think, remember and concentrate were much worse than those of subjects not affected by type 2 diabetes. Changes in the central nervous system significantly affect everyday functioning in the family and society, reducing the quality of life. Diabetics struggle with memory problems, with focusing attention, they show limited language and psychomotor skills, they have trouble with arithmetic tasks, abstract thinking and decision making.
Knowledge necessary for effective treatment
People affected by type 2 diabetes should be aware of the relationship between their disease and the functioning of cognitive processes. Effective treatment of diabetics is also their proper education. Cognitive dysfunction, when they occur, may cause the patient not to understand the principles that should be followed to fight diabetes. The good news is that if the disease is detected early enough, the patient still has plenty of time to take preventive measures.