A new study found type 2 diabetes could remarkably lower one's risk of suffering from the fatal neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Recent reports have suggested vascular risk factors, such as obesity, high cholesterol, and hyperlipidemia are linked to reduced cases of ALS and higher survival rates, the JAMA Network Journals reported .Patients with type 2 diabetes tend to have these risk factors.
To make their findings, a team of researchers looked at 3,650 patients diagnosed with ALS between 1982 and 2009 who were part of the Danish National Registers, they compared these results with 365,000 healthy control patients. They identified 9,294 patients with diabetes, 55 of whom also had ALS.
The researchers found diabetes was linked to a reduced risk of ALS, but the same was not true for obesity alone. The average age of ALS diagnosis was 65.4 years and 59.7 years for diabetes, and the link with diabetes was found to be associated with age of diagnosis for both conditions. Older age at diagnosis for either disease was linked to a reduced risk of ALS.
"We conducted a nationwide, population-based study and observed an overall protective association between diabetes and ALS diagnosis, with the suggestion that type 2 diabetes is protective and type 1 diabetes is a risk factor. Although the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear, our findings focus further attention on the role of energy metabolism in ALS pathogenesis," the study concluded.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal JAMA Neurology.
