Those of you who have been receiving my emails for a couple of years now know that I believe that one of the forms of Alzheimer’s disease is actually type 3 diabetes.  This article out of South Korea begins to address that issue, and validates the thesis of the role of insulin resistance and spuriously high levels of sugar in the brain having a role in this form of Alzheimer’s disease.

I believe that this is one of the mechanisms of action by which metformin is effective in lowering the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.  Metformin does not require insulin to bring down sugar levels in your blood or in your organs, so when your body becomes insulin resistance at roughly 50 years of age you are at risk of one of the forms of Alzheimer’s disease due to high sugar levels in your brain.  Now it appears that Melatonin also has a role in this form of Alzheimer’s disease.  The role of melatonin is intriguing and definitely needs more research.  As a physician I certainly saw patients who have had Alzheimer’s disease or minimal cognitive disorder whose symptoms are exacerbated by any form of sleep disruption.

To skip the article, here is the take away:  They suggest that melatonin will decrease the development of Alzheimer’s disease related to sugar which has been called type 3 diabetes.  As always these results need to be repeated at a second institution.

https://molecularbrain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13041-017-0315-x