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ABena2t t1_ixxw11k wrote

is diabetes a risk factor?

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mikasjoman t1_ixym739 wrote

I'm actually thinking of asking my doctor to prescribe me metformin (most commonly used and cheap diabetes drug) just as a precaution. My mom has dementia and my father has Alzheimers, so I'm in the risk group.

So I'm worried, and I tried to make some use of my two masters degrees to figure out what research actually know about what to do to reduce the risk.

So here's the interesting thing and what I'm doing...

  • FASTING: after looking in to the research, strangely enough it seems like intermittent fasting has a huge positive effect on the so called zombie cells that both increases inflamtions in our bodies (cause of most age related diseases including dementia). This from what I can find is the only thing that can actually turn our biological clock backwards in time. So I'm only eating lunch at 12 and dinner at 6pm. It doesn't really feel like fasting but it technically is. In one study fasting for five days three times in a year pulled back the groups biological age 2.5 years on an average. This turned out to way easier than I feared, probably because eating three times a day is a pretty modern invention and not something our bodies really need. When it comes to longevity and reducing the risk for dementia, this is probably the non medical strongest card there is to prevent dementia.

  • SLEEP! Sleep is probably the thing most people don't think about when it comes to health and preventive medicine. If we sleep well though, it has a huge impact in the way the body can restore itself and keep the brain young. Getting bad sleep is like banging ones head with a bat and asking to get dementia and a shorter life. There's a strong link between people getting bad sleep getting all sorts of physical and mental problems including reducing the risk of Dementia. On the upside it also keeps you having a positive mood, being able to focus, learn, retain what you learn. It's strange to me that people dont talk more about how incredibly important good sleep is for health. It's the base. If you have shitty sleep forget about eating healthy or exercising.

  • EXERCISE. Well do I need to say more? I think everyone by now know that exercising a few times a week has a huge positive impact on a lot of things, including inflammatory responses. Comparing it with the above, it's still not as good at reducing the risks as the above. I use my spinn bike 2 days a week and do HIIT between 15-30 minutes with my wife (favorite YT channel: growingananas).

Then we come to the wild card...

  • METFORMIN:There was a huge study (20k participants) where the people WITH diabetes actually as a group 17% lived longer with diabetes than the healthy group. This was wild because it should have been the opposite. The reason: metformin. The most commonly used and cheap diabetes drug in the world. It both shows an affect in longevity AND reduces risk to get dementia related diseases. Its basically the anti aging drug that was accidentally found. I'm really hoping it's next study on healthy people only will get its full funding (I find it wild that a drug that's cheap and seems to keep us healthier doesn't get a ton of money from the government). Given that we both haven't gotten the money for the study l and the fact that it's not been performed yet - this is still a bit of a wildcard but I know a lot of scientist in longevity research eats this daily. The tricky thing is that I'll probably not get this prescribed because like another drug thats highly popular within the medical community (Statin: greatly reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases) it needs to be prescribed.

On top of this I'm gonna make sure my life isn't just work and then get I'll. On a population level we have a 20% likelyhood to be dead even before we reach normal retirement age. While the above reduces that risk by a lot, the risk of either being dead or having some age related disease is still not insignificant by age 65. So how to beat the odds? Well retire earlier than 65. I'm aiming at age 50-55. That's actually easier than I thought since saving 1% extra of ones yearly salary usually reduces one year you have to work ( if starting to save at age 30). Given that I do save more than that, I'll probably gonna be able to reduce how much I work from age 47 if I want to.the thing is that I really enjoy my work in tech, I'm absolutely not someone who dislikes work. Also keeping the brain busy is key to avoid dementia. Im probably more of the kind of person who wants to find my optimal balance between work and leisure. I'm guessing that's about three days of work and four days of hobbies. I'll experiment with that as I reach my financial goals to achieve /r/fire (financial independence retire early).

Finally I try my best to always seek balance. If I want a breakfast, I still eat it. If I want to drink beers or stay up late to play PS5 with my friend, I do it. Denying oneself is not a good life and it usually makes it way more difficult to stay on the path I ahve chosen. If I want to splurge on buying something, I do it even if it will delay my goal of reaching partial early retirement. An example of this is my boat that I should have named "Sailing vessel black hole" beucase the amount of money she eats. But my goal is living a good long good life - not to save money (that's just one of the tools to achieve it).

That's my five cents on trying my best to avoid dementia and Alzheimers.

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ChicagoLaurie t1_ixyqlva wrote

I’d add having good social connections to this list. IMHO loneliness and social isolation are huge risk factors. If you do the other things you mentioned, you’d greatly reduce your risk without taking an unnecessary medication and assuming the negative effects related to that.

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mikasjoman t1_ixyr5cf wrote

Indeed. Social isolation is something that would have a great impact too. Also adding some foods that doesn't spike the blood sugar levels also would make a difference of course but then it becomes more tricky to explain as simple principles.

As an example of that... I just had a great lunch-first with noodles made from sweet potatoes and beef, perfect since my wife is Chinese and it doesn't spike the blood sugar while tasting awesome.

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InTheEndEntropyWins t1_ixys1cb wrote

Some useful info here, but the science isn't that clear on Metformin. The latest studies don't show that longevity increase in normal people. Also metformin negatively interferes with the benefits of exercise. So most people in the longevity field have stopped taking metformin. Exercise is just much better for health, dementia and longevity.

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mikasjoman t1_ixyw2kg wrote

Yeah. Well we'll have to wait for that bigger study - it's more of an wild card at this point like I wrote. Anything else you'd like to add to the list?

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uninstallIE t1_ixy2tro wrote

This corresponds to the concept that Alzheimers is "type 3 diabetes"

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severe_thunderstorm t1_ixy1f2m wrote

Yes, honestly seems as though everything is a risk factor for both, or either, cancer and dementia.

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ABena2t t1_ixy2nbq wrote

I don't know much about dementia - or diabetes for that matter. But I watched my mother go thru both. I knew dementia was a terrible disease but I had no idea how bad diabetes actually was. It screwed my mom up bad. One day she was fine (relatively). The next we find her on the floor. She couldn't walk. Went legally blind. She had to go into long term care and bc she couldn't walk and really take care of herself she wound up with a UTI. and not for nothing - but I swear that UTI messed her up bad. Once she got that she was never the same. The dementia seemed to kick in overnight (either that or it was so slow noone noticed it). But it became noticeable once she had the UTI. and then it was just a downward spiral from there. Then covid happened. They locked down the facility. we couldn't even visit bc they wouldn't allow people in. Did no good because she got covid anyway. It was literally a nightmare. Worst/Hardest/saddest thing I've ever seen.

it all started with diabetes - but I'm not sure if they were related or not. If she didn't have diabetes would she have got dementia anyway? maybe. Did It set in faster bc of diabetes? probably

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severe_thunderstorm t1_ixy77gj wrote

Neither my mom or my grandmother had/s diabetes.

But yes, when someone has dementia any kind of infection sends them off the rails, and it’s usually UTIs.

Studies also show chronic inflammation can cause Alzheimer’s.

Edit to add: with dementia some of the changes and declines are very subtle and slow, sometimes they come like a cliff out of nowhere.

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Balthasar_Loscha t1_iy1xnuy wrote

Diabetes causes wasting of vitamins in the urine, lessened uptake of DHA into the CNS, very high oxidative stress, lessened production/utilization of energy, and severe hormonal disorders, the major ones like E, Prog, Thyroid, DHEA, T.

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