Is Sugar Behind the Wheel of Alzheimer’s?
PEOPLE ARE EATING TOO MUCH SUGAR, and it’s making them ill. In fact, granulated sweetness may be the driving force behind cognitive issues including Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers have uncovered more reasons to stop eating this sinister sweet stuff. But are we listening?
“80% of people with Alzheimer’s disease?have either full-blown diabetes or insulin resistance. The link between insulin resistance and AD is so obvious to some researchers they’ve began calling it?diabetes type 3!”
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia. Since 1990,?Alzheimer’s disease has increased by nearly 150%. If the trend continues, by 2050 there will be?152 million people?struggling with the condition.
And just in case you think you have no control over this insidious disease, consider this.?Only 5% of Alzheimer’s is?hereditary. The remaining 95% is a blend of?lifestyle, environmental?and genetic factors—genetic factors that are in part determined by your lifestyle and environment.
The key to a healthy lifestyle is a nutritious diet that keeps the body and brain in balance. Sugar unbalances this tightrope walk. Give your health a chance by kicking added sugar today.
There’s plenty of proof
There are many strong mechanistic connections, animal trials and human observational associations between Alzheimer’s disease and sugar that are becoming?hard to ignore.
Research correlates strongly with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and?high blood sugar?levels. Sufferers of diabetes type 2 (I’ll call it simply diabetes from here)—a condition characterised by poorly controlled blood sugar—are?two to three times?more likely to suffer from the most common form of dementia. Diabetes and AD share other characteristics.
Both conditions feature?impairments when transporting blood sugar?into cells to be converted into energy—a state of insulin resistance. Remember that term, it crops up a lot when discussing chronic diseases, particularly those modern conditions sweeping the globe.
In the AD brain, amyloid plaques appear; in diabetics,?similar plaques?grind pancreatic insulin-producing cells to a standstill.
Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) are damaging molecules formed in the body when excessive sugar muscles its way inside fats and proteins to form this persistent?bio-marker implicated?in both diabetes and AD. Insulin resistance is a?cause of AGEs.
Also, chronic inflammation, dysfunctional signalling between brain cells, and impaired cellular recycling (autophagy) are?undesirable features of both conditions. But the juicy research comes from none other than our furry little friends.
Lab rats
Laboratory rodents repeatedly subjected to research for the sake of humankind have revealed the detrimental effects of high sugar diets and their potential?causative?effects in AD and other dementias.
Numerous clinical trials show that?high fructose diets negatively affect cognition.
Animals fed excessive amounts of fructose develop insulin resistance in the brain which?promotes dementia. Beta-amyloid plaques—a factor in AD despite revelations of?shoddy research—also form under the stresses created by excessive amounts of this fruit sugar.
Rats fed high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)—a particular favourite with junk food manufacturers, especially manufacturers of kids’ cereals —became more insulin resistant and cognitively impaired?than the rat pack that didn’t?receive this saccharine poison.
Scientists fed hamsters?large amounts of fructose, inducing insulin resistance and creating problems in brain cell signalling. A?similar trial?using more furry brethren showed fructose caused insulin resistance and a foggy brain that prevented the normally astute little beasts from escaping a maze.
A review paper published in?The Journals of Gerontology?assessed the role of fructose in cognitive decline and neurodegeneration. The researchers concluded that the mechanistic data provided by animal research does support a link between fructose consumption and Alzheimer’s as well as other cognitive illnesses.
Let’s see in which direction some of the human studies are pointing.
Human observational data
Nearly 2000 participants were tracked for nineteen years. Those who consumed?more sugary drinks?were more likely to get dementia including AD.
Data from about?4000 people?in the Framingham Heart Study showed a strong correlation between sugary drinks, brain shrinkage and poorer memory performance even after controlling for other lifestyle and demographic factors.
If you?regularly drink sugar-sweetened beverages?(SSB), you’re 25% more likely to acquire diabetes type 2. Adding just?one SSB to your daily routine?increases your likelihood of diabetes by 13% independent of weight gain. What’s this got to do with Alzheimer’s?
The?earlier in life one gets diabetes, the more likely one is to suffer from AD or another form of dementia. Standby for this bombshell:
80% of people with Alzheimer’s disease?have either full-blown diabetes or insulin resistance. The link between insulin resistance and AD is so obvious to some researchers they’ve begun calling it?diabetes type 3!
Other conditions seem bonded to AD by the same metabolic problem caused by ignorance and junk diets.
A less obvious link that needs consideration
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is another heavily lifestyle-influenced condition that has enjoyed a?meteoric rise in the past decade or so. NAFLD in kids exploded by?62% between 2009–2018.
Raised liver enzymes, a tell-tale sign of a fatty liver struggling to function, are often discovered in random health checkups because symptoms don’t appear until the condition is much further along.
Raised liver enzymes are?associated with a higher risk of AD?and brain shrinkage. A link was first noticed by doctors who saw their patients with NAFLD having problems with?attention, memory and forgetfulness.
According to?Alzheimer’s Research UK, people with NAFLD have?“much higher rates of dementia”. But the link could be even stronger because NAFLD goes undiagnosed so often.
There are multiple?shared genes and pathological mechanisms?that contribute to the development of both AD and NAFLD despite affecting two different organs. But the lowest-hanging fruit, well within your grasp, is sugar.
Fructose causes NAFLD. The mechanisms are well known. So well known in fact that we create fatty liver disease by forcing carbohydrates into duck’s stomachs at levels way beyond self-directed pecking and scooping. Responding, their livers swell with fatty deposits which unfortunately for them happens to be delicious. You may know it as Foie Gras.
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Let’s talk about sugar and particularly fructose.
Where does all this fructose come from?
Here’s something worth remembering. Glucose—the form of sugar carried in our blood—can be?converted into fructose in the brain?to protect it from the reactive nature of glucose hanging around in the blood due to insulin resistance.
Fructose is converted into glucose by the gut to shield the liver. But, when the gut becomes overloaded by convenience foods high in fructose, the liver has to deal with it—remember the Foie Gras?
Fructose is fruit sugar. It makes up about 50% of table sugar, the other half is glucose. Both sugars are found within fruits and other carbohydrate foods in varying fractions.
Throughout our evolution, eating fructose and glucose contained within foods has been self-limiting. I mean how many apples can you eat in one go? Especially when they were the size of a ping-pong ball and fifty feet off the ground!
Now go another step or two into the modern world. Extract the fructose. Make it cheap. Hide it in everything. Take it away from its whole food package of nutrients and fibres and you’ve gone way past the sweet spot.
Way past what our bodies have ever had to deal with in our evolution, even when eating a handful of honey and simultaneously fighting off raging bees. There’s nothing like a hundred bee stings to take the edge off a sweet tooth. When overloading the body with sugar, our systems fight off this tsunami of sweetness but it comes at a cost. Doesn’t it just.
Acute bodily actions against relatively large amounts of sugar in whole fruits can be handled by a healthy body, one without insulin resistance. But today, acute reactions become chronic never-ceasing alerts to a sugar onslaught. Day in and day out this emergency response plays on, constantly topped up by convenience foods and tasty drinks.
Now the body has to work even harder to protect itself,?changing and rechanging the sugar’s form to shield both the liver and the brain. These?ancient protective measures?have now become dangerous.
Like a ship’s company, the body cannot remain on action stations forever. Bit by bit your health degrades in two of the most important organs you have.
Brain functions slow to a crawl. Areas of your thinking organ are shut off completely like compartments in a sinking submarine; the idea being to sacrifice the few to save the many and continue on in service.
Inside the liver, the battle continues. Less critical processes, as determined by the rules of survival, leave chemical by-products to fester and accumulate. Acute responses stagnate becoming chronic states of inflammation, oxidative stress, fatty deposits, and a hundred other things attributed to a plethora of diseases and all the while we keep opting for tasty convenience becoming snagged in a sugary barb.
Nothing is going wrong
The body doesn’t do things by accident. These protective measures—the conversions of one form of sugar to another and back again—are designed to save us in the present. They turn on and then they’re supposed to turn off again.
In the brain, small amounts of fructose may even allow us to focus, to?eliminate distractions?echoing from other parts of our grey matter. During times of hardship, where energy was better stored than used to power all parts of our most power-hungry organ at all times—like leaving the bathroom light on in a campervan—this fructose-based mechanism might mean the difference between success and failure in the present moment; it’s life or death stuff.
Nowadays, for so many of us, our blood sugar levels remain high around the clock except in the early hours of the morning when the stress of low blood sugar awakens us so we scurry to fill our breakfast bowl with the fakest of healthy foods. Cereals are loaded to the gills with sugar in one form or several.
The insidious condition of insulin resistance is more common than a pair of blue jeans, and our chronic responses to high sugar levels are now causing parts of the brain to shut off permanently. Our dearest memories are being sealed away inside parts of that damaged submarine because any other course of action would behold an even greater disaster.
And it seems that one of the crew members, the captain even, is in fact a saboteur slinking off to the engineering department pouring sugar into the fuel tank sinking his own charge.
Yet again our ancient bodies clash with our modern lifestyles. But here you go, I’m going to muddy this message with a little antithesis to give those of you who just can’t kick sugar the excuse you need to keep chugging it down.
Antithesis
There are no human trials demonstrating the?causation?of AD by sugar. This is because it’s unethical to conduct such research. Researchers have to sit back and watch groups of people who tell them certain things about their diets and lifestyles and then see what happens over decades sometimes. I discussed some of these papers showing links between sugar and AD a little earlier.
Not all of these studies show links between sugar and AD. And, not?all studies?have shown a link between AD and NAFLD. So no doubt there are other factors at play.
So, maybe you can keep heaping sugar into your coffee, and keep snacking on chocolate bars and sweets. Or you can ditch the unnecessary crap.
Ditch added sugar today
Excessive sugar consumption is all too common. Eating too much sugar can?cause insulin resistance. In rodents, insulin resistance in the brain causes cognitive decline in a matter of weeks.
In humans, the links between sugar consumption, particularly from sugar-sweetened beverages, and conditions underpinned by insulin resistance including?NAFLD and diabetes, are strengthening and clearing the fog that weak observational research seems so good at generating.
Without a doubt, there are other factors at play in the genesis of AD and dementia, as well as the other conditions that are associated with it. But remember that insulin resistance is key in all of those conditions that link so closely with AD and dementia. But, insulin resistance isn’t only caused by subjective excessive sugar consumption—therein lies a part of the problem. Are you stressed?
Stress can?cause insulin resistance! Research has demonstrated?chronic stress as a cause of Alzheimer’s disease. But worse still, insulin resistance and the resultant high blood sugar levels are stressful, meaning you can get yourself trapped in a vicious circle.
I’d love to see human data with sugar consumption and chronic stress levels considered in relation to insulin resistance and cognitive illness.
Sugar is everywhere today. Our consumption of it is far beyond what are precious systems can endure. Protective measures inside the body can only last for so long. In fact, those very same protective measures actually become dangerous when crossing from acute to chronic.
Remember that it’s not just fructose that is relevant because the body changes glucose into fructose and vice versa. The best thing you can do right now is cut out added sugars from your?daily?routine.
If you're in doubt about your insulin resistance status, go and see your doctor for blood tests. Learn about how to tackle the gateway condition with diet and lifestyle changes.
Don’t sabotage your own submarine by continuing to pour sugar into the engine. If you’re resistant, even angry about the idea of throwing sugar out then you must double down and start asking yourself why.
Thanks for reading.