Comment by zadokshi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zadokshi | Hacker News Reader

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Yes, but there are other studies that make this link. The link is apparently strong enough that some prefer the phrase “type three diabetes” as a way to describe Alzheimers.

    “Currently, there is a rapid growth in the literature pointing toward insulin deficiency and insulin resistance as mediators of AD-type neurodegeneration, but this surge of new information is riddled with conflicting and unresolved concepts regarding the potential contributions of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), metabolic syndrome, and obesity to AD pathogenesis.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2769828/#:~:tex....

That’s still far from established at the level to warrant the original expression of absolute certainty. Considering that people have been studying it for decades, and that it’s like 70% heritable, it’s unlikely that everyone missed something as simple as “they are eating too much sugar” – something like this is likely to involve multiple genetic and lifestyle risk factors. I would defer to the researchers who still characterize it as a hypothesis - for example, this article is recent but is still careful not to overstate the case:

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9059/12/1/99

Part of why that matters is that you will have no trouble finding people who ate little sugar and still developed it, or sweet fiends who didn’t, and presenting such a simple explanation can feel cruel to people who saw their loved ones die a pretty ugly death since it sounds like you’re saying it’s a choice.

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