Diabetes linked to increased risk of Alzheimer’s

Having diabetes may increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to new findings from a well-known study of Catholic clergy.

Researchers from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago reported that among 824 nuns, priests and brothers followed for an average of 5 1/2 years, 151 had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s -- among them 31 diabetics.

Diabetics, they calculated, had a 65% higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s than nondiabetics.

Although the researchers don’t know why the presence of diabetes made patients more vulnerable to the memory-robbing disease, their findings follow past research suggesting that diabetes may affect the brain systems that control memory for words and events, speed of processing information and the ability to recognize spatial patterns.

The federally sponsored research is preliminary, and scientists said further studies were needed to determine whether treating diabetes could lower the risks of Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline.

The study appeared in the May issue of the Archives of Neurology.

-- Jane E. Allen