This is true even if you don’t have diabetes.
Yes, research at the University of Pennsylvania shows that type 2 diabetes is linked to accelerated brain degeneration.
“We found that patients having more severe diabetes had less brain tissue, suggesting brain atrophy,” says researcher Nick Bryan, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of radiology.
The fact is that insulin is known to affect the brain in large doses.
But researchers at Oxford University discovered that even people with seemingly normal blood sugar by medical clinical standards suffer “atrophy” (brain shrinkage) if their insulin rises often by spikes in blood sugar.
If you want to avoid this brain tissue destruction, you can reverse the risk by eating more fruits and vegetables. At least seven or more servings a day. Other studies show that people with high levels of phytochemicals in their blood from plant produce decrease their risk of blood sugar – and thus insulin – spikes.
Meanwhile, about 26 million people in the U.S. have diabetes and 40 million more may have pre-diabetes, where their blood sugar and insulin are on the verge of crossing over into diabetic territory.
The UPenn scientists say the longer you have this condition, the more it affects your brain.
“Diabetes duration correlated primarily with brain atrophy,” Bryan says. “Stated another way, our results suggested that, for every 10 years of diabetes duration, the brain of a patient with diabetes looks approximately two years older than that of a non-diabetic person, in terms of gray matter volume.”
So start eating much more fruits and vegetables as soon as possible and you’ll keep your gray matter healthy and whole for much longer.
