Diabetes,
Depression, and Dementia
This past
summer I volunteered in a hospital to work with elderly patients. Each day a
group of volunteers would go to different room’s of patients and discuss
different ways to help keep their mind active and awake. Before we would visit
rooms, we would talk to the nurses in order to see what type of mindset their
patient was dealing with. We were often told that patients were diagnosed with
some sort of dementia, these patients had a hard time holding a conversation
with us or even understanding where they were and what they were doing in a
hospital. I understood that the actual cause of dementia was completely
understood, but a study performed by Dimitry Davydow, M.D., M.P.H., from the
Univeristy of Washington School of Medicine helped provide some possible
answers for this terrible disease.
The study
investigated depression and type 2 diabetes mellitus as risk factors that
contribute to the probability of developing dementia in older age. They chose a
population of Danish citizens who had depression, type 2 diabetes or both
diseases. Then they compared these groups with a group of people who did not
have either condition or dementia, and followed their health for a period. The
results showed that having either condition showed a very high risk (up to 83%)
of developing dementia. The results of having both type 2 diabetes and
depression and linking it to developing dementia was as high as 117%. Although
these results show these factors could pose a serious risk to developing the
disease, many more studies need to be made.
I was
surprised to see that type 2 diabetes was shown to be a possible factor leading
to dementia, I couldn’t see a clear connection between diabetes and memory
loss. However, I understand that depression can lead to decreased neurogenesis
within the brain and maybe that could lead to decreased connections in the
brain and cause long-term damage and memory loss.
I chose this
article because I wanted a better understanding of this disease and overall, I
did enjoy this study, but I would have preferred a more in depth explanation of
why they thought these diseases were risk factors. I think an explanation would
have made the article more interesting as well as leave the readers with a
better understanding of the disease and how it is caused.
One of the articles I read ties in really well with a "cure" to this article you read. The article I'm referring to is: http://media.ntu.edu.sg/NewsReleases/Pages/newsdetail.aspx?news=3d353059-1195-496d-967d-56e72c527e77
ReplyDeleteThe article title is “NTU Scientists Discover New Treatment for Dementia” and it really ties in very well with your article because in this one, it talks about how scientists have discovered that with miniscule electrical impulses to specific parts of the frontal section of the brain, there can be a growth of new brain cells which is beneficial to reducing depression and dementia and perhaps through the reduction of these two diseases, perhaps type 2 diabetes can be avoided in some people as well.