Patients with Type 2 diabetes could be losing more brain volume that is normal for their age.
"We have known for a long time that diabetes is not good for the brain," lead researcher Dr. R. Nick Bryan, a professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perleman School of Medicine in Philadelphia said, HealthDay reported.
The damage is not believed to be linked to shrinkage of the small blood vessels in the brain but rather how the brain handles sugar.
Diabetes has been linked to other brain problems such as dementia and stroke.
"But our study suggests that there is additional damage to the brain which may be more like a brain disorder such as Alzheimer's disease," Bryan said. "So there may be two ways diabetes affects the brain, damage to blood vessels and brain-cell degeneration."
"It is important that patients understand the adverse effect of their disease on their brains and cooperate with their doctors who are trying to treat their diabetes and prevent the effects of diabetes on the brain and other organs," he said.
Type 2 diabetes prevents the body from properly using insulin, which can cause and excess of blood sugar.
To make their findings the researchers looked at MRI brain scans of 614 people who had suffered from Type 2 diabetes for an average of 10 years. HealthDay reported.
The team found for every decade someone had diabetes it caused their brain to look an additional two years older than a brain of the same age that had not been exposed to diabetes.
"Given the increasing public health burden of type 2 diabetes, the findings of this research are very important as they link diabetes directly to brain atrophy, underscoring the importance of primary prevention and early management of diabetes in reducing the burden of dementia, particularly in older population," Doctor Souhel Najjar, director of neuroscience and stroke at Staten Island University Hospital told HealthDay.
