disease, brain glucose metabolism is already reduced by 45
percent compared to healthy people. But as I’ve mentioned,
any brain can experience difficulties deriving energy from
glucose, well before memory problems emerge. Aside from
the ApoE4 allele, this situation may be the result of the same
diet and lifestyle stresses that encourage the development of
type 2 diabetes.^31 In one eye-opening study, insulin
resistance in the body predicted diminished glucose
metabolism (called hypometabolism) in the brains of
cognitively normal adults. “Hallmarks of Alzheimer’s
disease, such as glucose hypometabolism and a loss in brain
tissue, are nevertheless strongly associated with peripheral
insulin resistance,” wrote researchers in the journal
Physiological Reviews. (Revisit page to learn how to assess
your own sensitivity to insulin.)
THE NEW FRONTIER: TREATING ALZHEIMER’S
AS A METABOLIC DISEASE
When it comes to the most common form of dementia, there
are likely many interacting variables that decide one’s fate.
As my friend Richard Isaacson, Alzheimer’s prevention
specialist, says, “Once you’ve seen one case of Alzheimer’s
disease, you’ve seen one case of Alzheimer’s disease.” The
complexity of the disease, coupled with the fact that it
begins in the brain well before the appearance of symptoms,
may explain why Alzheimer’s drug trials have a 99.6
percent failure rate. And why no one has ever recovered