Older diabetics whose blood sugar drops to dangerously low levels have a higher risk of developing dementia, US researchers said on Tuesday. The study by researchers at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, suggests that aggressive blood sugar control resulting in blood sugar so low it requires a trip to the hospital may increase dementia risks in older adults with type 2 diabetes. Rachel Whitmer, a Kaiser research scientist whose study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said a number of things such as a missed meal can cause severe low blood sugar in diabetics, but the chief cause is too much insulin, which can happen in people who take insulin injections or with oral diabetes drugs such as sulfanylureas or glimepiride that cause the body to make more insulin. The study offers evidence that aggressive measures to control blood sugar can cause harm in elderly diabetics.
