Sugar And Your Brain: Is Alzheimer’s Disease Actually Type 3 Diabetes?

Sugar and Your Brain: Is Alzheimer’s Disease Actually Type 3 Diabetes?

It starves your brain, tangles and twists vital cells, and for decades it has been misrepresented as an untreatable, genetically determined disease. Alzheimer's disease is the 6th leading cause of death in North America1. The truth, however, is that this devastating illness shares a strong link with another sickness that wreaks havoc on millions of individuals in North America — Diabetes.
We all know that individuals affected by Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes have a notable resistance to insulin. Type 1 is caused by the body's inability to produce insulin, and Type 2 is caused by the deterioration of the body's insulin receptors and associated with the consumption of too much refined carbohydrate like processed grains and sugar. But when studies began to appear in 2005 that revealed a shocking correlation between insulin and brain cell deterioration, major breaks were made around Alzheimer's prevention[i]. Health practitioners became curious about a critical question — could Alzheimer's disease simply be Type 3 Diabetes?
Alzheimer's disease has long been perceived as mysterious and inevitable. 5.3 million individuals suffer every year from the disease that appears to be untreatable[ii]. But, if this illness is associated with insulin resistance, this simply isn't the case.
We already know that diabetics are at least twice as likely to experience dementia[iii]. The cells of your brain can become insulin-resistant just like other cells in the body. What was once considered a mysterious accumulation of beta amyloid plaques characteristic in the Alzheimer brain is now associate Continue reading

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What It’s Like To Live With Type 1 Diabetes

What It’s Like To Live With Type 1 Diabetes
By: Valeria Guerrero
What’s it like?
It’s pricking your finger endlessly throughout the day.
It’s not being afraid of blood because you get used to seeing so much of it.
It’s no longer feeling tremor to a needle because you’ve had no choice than to be poked by them every day.
It’s being woken up countless times throughout the night to fix blood sugars that just won’t become stable.
It’s waking up feeling hung over because your sugars were high all night no matter the amount of corrections you gave yourself.
It’s not being able to eat whatever you want before carb counting and analyzing how it will affect your sugars later.
It’s having to put on a fake smile every time you have to explain to someone that type 1 and type 2 diabetes are NOT the same thing.
It’s not being able to go a single work out without stressing if you’re going to go too low, drop too fast or go high.
It’s seeing all the scars all over our tummy, arms and legs from all the site changes and pokes and just cry.
It’s people staring at you while you poke yourself and watching you like something is wrong with you.
It’s people telling you “you can’ t have that” or “should you be eating that?”
It’s people assuming you have type 2 when you say you have diabetes.
It’s watching people look at you like you’re breaking the law by having a candy.
It’s asking yourself what you did wrong because you got this disease even when they say it isn’t your fault.
It’s remembering what it was like before being diagnosed and feeling Continue reading

‘Type 3 diabetes’: New links emerge between poor glucose metabolism and Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease is often broadly referred to as “Type 3 diabetes,” because it’s thought that glucose processing goes haywire in the neurodegenerative disease, just as it does in diabetes.
A new National Institutes of Health study adds some credence to that theory, finding that glitches in the way the brain breaks down glucose — a process called glycolysis — seem to correspond with more severe symptoms in patients with Alzheimer’s. Continue reading

Type 2 Diabetes Medication Used for Type 1

Do people with Type 1 diabetes take medications for Type 2 diabetes?
The other day, Myra came to my clinic for her initial assessment for Diabetes Self-Management Education. As we were going through her list of medications, I discovered that she was taking liraglutide (Victoza), but her diagnosis was clearly Type 1 diabetes.
Myra stated that her endocrinologist had prescribed the medication. He informed her that this was becoming more common. I had heard that patients with Type 1 diabetes were being prescribed GLP-1 non-insulin injections for their Type 1 Diabetes, specifically liraglutide.
I had also heard about SGLT2 inhibitors were being used for Type 1 diabetes, but I had heard about an increased incidence of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) with these medications for Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes patients. Since inquiring minds want to know, I decided to investigate both.
Liraglutide for Type 1 diabetes in the news
In August, 2015, Novo Nordisk made a decision not to pursue liraglutide for Type 1 diabetes with the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). This decision came after the second trial for the FDA approval was completed. In the trial, researchers compared the addition of liraglutide to insulin therapy with a control group on standard insulin therapy. Novo Nordisk concluded that the results were not quite good enough, and decided not to pursue the FDA approval for liraglutide for Type 1 diabetes.
Benefits of liraglutide in Type 1 patients
In the study, when taking liraglutide, Type 2 patients saw a lower A1C, significant weight loss, and decreased number of episodes of hypo Continue reading

Pregnancy and Type 1 Diabetes

When you are pregnant, your ideal scenario is to not gain too much weight, pass each milestone without worry, and have a safe, fast delivery that results in a healthy baby. When you have Type 1 diabetes, however, the ideal pregnancy may seem unattainable. Lisa Pink, a new mother, was able to manage her pregnancy along with her diabetes to have a healthy baby girl. She summed up her experience: “It’s a lot of work. However, it’s also worth it when you hold your healthy, perfect baby!”
Before conception
Lisa learned she had Type 1 diabetes when she was 25 years old. She didn’t think about pregnancy and starting a family until she reached her mid-30s. Lisa didn’t know any mothers with Type 1 diabetes, but two of her friends knew of women who had managed their diabetes throughout successful pregnancies. Encouraged, Lisa went to her doctor a year before she and her husband began trying to become pregnant, which is highly recommended. A woman with Type 1 diabetes should attain healthy blood glucose levels before conception. This is important for the baby’s health during pregnancy but also before conception. The National Institutes of Health recommends that a woman with Type 1 diabetes have blood glucose levels in the target range of 80 to 110 mg/dl before eating and 100 to 155 mg/dl one to two hours after eating for three to six months before becoming pregnant. During pregnancy, the recommended target blood glucose range is 60 to 99 mg/dl before eating and 100 to 129 mg/dl one to two hours after eating.
Safe sugar
Meeting these target ranges will help decrease the c Continue reading