Exercise, Blood Sugar and Memory Loss

Summary:  Physical exercise helps you maintain normal blood sugar levels, and may reduce your risk of memory loss.

In my last post, I wrote about how reduced blood flow to aging brains decreases the amount of glucose available to brain cells.  This may trigger a series of events contributing to Alzheimer’s.  But just as too little glucose is a problem, too much can also be harmful.

Scott A. Small, MD

A new study by Dr. Scott Small and colleagues at Columbia University links age-related increases in blood sugar [glucose] to damage in an area of the brain called the dentate gyrus.  The dentate gyrus is part of the hippocampus, an area thought to be involved with short term memory.  The researchers think this may explain how high blood sugar, even in people without full-blown diabetes, can contribute to “normal” age-related memory loss.

Exercise, which is the best way to increase blood flow and glucose supply to aging brains, may also be the best way to keep glucose levels from getting too high.  It’s possible that exercising may prevent memory loss in other ways, too.  The Columbia University researchers have previously shown that exercise appears to help the dentate gyrus form new brain cells.  “Physical exercise is likely a good thing for both glucose handling and for cognitive aging,” says Dr. Small.

Comments

[Don Moyer]

These two reports book-ending the importance of exercise for our aging brains raise some interesting questions.

The first report suggests the importance of exercise to keep the level of our brain glucose from getting too low to cause memory challenges.

The second report suggests the importance of exercise to keep the level of our brain glucose from getting too high to cause memory challenges.

These book ends show for me how devilishly easy it is to get our brains haywire.

And, they, along with much other evidence showing the importance of exercise for our aging brains, raise some questions:

Why aren't there major programs promoting and aiding exercise for geezers?

Is it less costly to treat the consequences of memory challenges?

Or, is it that the big profits and big contributions to politicians come from treating the consequences?

[Gail Rae Hudson]

I had to comment on this. Probably because I was my mother's alter ego, it was ALWAYS apparent to me, before stabbing her fingers for a BG reading, when her blood glucose was high; it had been apparent since 1999. Somewhere in my journals I describe the effect as though my mother's brain was syrup logged.
As well, when my mother's lung tumor began stealing glucose to the point of us having to keep her blood sugar up by making sure she ate nightly desserts, when her glucose dropped precipitously all she wanted to do was sleep. However, when her BG was too high it didn't affect her ability to stay awake, it just threw her brain askew.
Although I'm unclear about what the research shows regarding permanent memory loss from high blood glucose levels, I do know that bringing my mother's blood glucose down from the heights by any means possible corresponded with a noticeable intellectual boost; and bringing it up from the depths corresponded with more physical energy.