Volume 12 Issue 1

June 2005

New Form of Diabetes
May Damage the Brain
By Ker Than, Psychology Today, June 2005

New Preventive Services
from Medicare Available Now!

iabetes and Alzheimer’s disease may be related, but not in the way many researchers have suspected. Scientists have long believed insulin was produced exclusively by the pancreas. Now, Brown University scientists say they have surprising evidence that the brain makes its own insulin, the hormone that shuttles energy into the body’s cells. They believe that Alzheimer’s disease may be triggered by what they have named “type 3” diabetes, a condition caused by the brain’s inability to produce insulin. Diabetes has long been identified as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, but the mechanism has remained a mystery.

Examining postmortem human brain tissue, the researchers determined that a drop in the brain’s insulin production contributes to the degeneration of brain cells, an early symptom of Alzheimer’s. “If you destroy the ability of neurons to respond to insulin or if you take insulin away, neurons don’t survive,” says Suzanne de la Monte, a neuropathologist at Brown Medical School in Rhode Island and an author of the study. The condition was found in the hippocampus, a region of the brain responsible for learning and memory.

So-called type 3 diabetes is confined to the brain and doesn’t put other parts of the body at risk, says Ms. de la Monte. Other forms of the disease contribute to the risk for heart disease and stroke.

The study appears in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

New preventative benefits are available now. People with Medicare can start taking advantage of these services to help stay healthy: Cardiovascular and Diabetes screening tests and for those new to Medicare, a one-time “Welcome to Medicare” physical exam. For more information about these important preventative services, call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227). We are here 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer your Medicare questions. TTY users should call 1-877-486-2048. Information is also available at www.medicare.gov on the web.

t. Louis Children’s Hospital recently opened a multi-disciplinary center that caters to the needs of children with Down Syndrome. This center is the only type of its kind in St. Louis and was established and designed by Washington University School of Medicine and the Down Syndrome Association (DSA) “to help families coordinate care for their children so they can see multiple specialists on that day and get the care they need,” Grange said.

SB 173—dealing with a graduated increase in payments to sheltered workshops passed in the Senate, however, the House Committee substitute, HB 326, did not pass. Under these measures, workshops would be reimbursed at a rate of eighteen dollars multiplied by the number of six hour or longer days worked by handicapped workers. Additionally, the legislation provided that in making purchases for the state, a bidding preference of a 25-point bonus (currently, a 5-point bonus) would be given for products/services produced or assembled in qualified nonprofit organizations for the blind and in sheltered workshops approved by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Mentally Retarded Citizens of Missouri will be working to help pass these bills in the next legislative session.

A Prevention Poem
Prevention is caring about human outcomes,
it is pre-term babies supported
viruses foiled
alcohol avoided
thyroid replaced
phenyalanine suppressed
lead eliminated
vitamins embraced
enzymes measured
genes coded
but especially it is food and
transportation and housing and
respite and clean environments,
little children guided and stimulated,
mothers who are challenged getting help,
babies born who are wanted, expected, and valued
wrestling with inequities and striving for justice.
Remember - the big numbers in prevention will be in socially - designed programs.
When the final analysis is made, prevention is the ultimate
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY enterprise.

The author of this poem is Dr. Allen Crocker, Director of the Developmental Evaluation Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. It appeared in The Prevention News - The ARC, California Edition.