We know sugar is bad for your teeth, but your brain too?
This month the New England Journal of Medicine published a study showing evidence that higher blood glucose levels may increase risk for dementia. This study isn’t totally conclusive, but it follows on the observation that dementia rates are higher in people who have diabetes, and might be enough to get folks to start thinking about steering their diets away from the carbohydrate gluts of starchy and sugary snacks and meals that lead to spiking blood sugar levels.
Prevention is almost always the best medicine, especially in the case of dementia where impactful medical therapy remains elusive. While there’s no sure way to prevent dementia, a growing body of evidence shows that we can modify the risk we have of getting the disease. It may be that in addition to doing things like not smoking, exercising regularly, maintaining a normal blood pressure eating a lower carbohydrate diet may also have a protective effect.
With the number of people suffering from dementia in America projected to double by 2030 and no cure in sight, we may well have found another reason to end out addiction to sugar.