You don’t need help getting older. Nature takes care of that for all of us.
But you could be aging faster on the inside without realizing it. And the latest research shows one common way we can get older faster.
And it happens in the WORST possible place: your brain.
This all-too-common condition can speed aging right inside your gray matter. And that can lead directly to cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.
But I’ve got something else the new study doesn’t. And that’s a way to help turn that risk back around to:
- protect your brain
- preserve memory and cognition
- block decline and dementia
Best of all? It doesn’t take too much effort, just a little extra mindfulness while shopping and preparing meals.
The blood sugar link to cognitive decline
The new research makes a direct link between diabetes and rapid brain aging. And that can lead to cognitive decline and even Alzheimer’s disease.
But if you DON’T have diabetes, don’t tune out just yet. You may not be off the hook either. Because, as you’ll see in a moment, there’s one crucial way you could suffer the same brain-aging damage even if you don’t have the disease.
Let’s get started by taking a closer look at this new study. Researchers found that diabetes could create a chain reaction that can wipe out brain capacity.
And this damage could be taking place under the hood right now. And that’s true even if you have no obvious signs of decline just yet.
The reason is the aging that I mentioned earlier. You see, when you have diabetes, it’s as if someone’s pressed a “fast-forward” button on the decline inside your head.
As a result, diabetes can cause your brain to age 26 percent faster.
This isn’t like aging on the skin or hair. It’s NOT cosmetic. Aging inside the brain affects nearly every measure of cognitive skills. In fact, the diabetic volunteers in the study did worse by almost every measure.
They had a 13.1 percent plunge in all-important executive function beyond what could be explained by normal aging… and a 6.7 percent drop in processing speed.
They even had LESS gray matter in the brain itself.
Aging alone can do this. In fact, ALL of our brains shrink with age. But once again, the diabetic brains shrank faster… 6.2 percent faster in the ventral striatum, to be exact.
The researchers found more gray matter loss elsewhere in the brain, too. And again, it was more than what we see in normal aging.
Slow aging in your brain
Not diabetic? Well, as I mentioned earlier, you could be vulnerable to this brain shrink risk even if you don’t have diabetes. Because other studies have found this ISN’T just because of the disease.
It’s because of elevated blood sugar. Even without diabetes, higher-than-normal glucose levels can lead to faster aging in the brain and a higher risk of cognitive decline.
Plus, some studies have found that those same elevated levels can lead to other issues, too, including an increased heart risk.
And remember, these issues can pop up even in folks who DON’T have diabetes. So that makes it more urgent than ever to keep glucose levels under control whether you have diabetes or not.
The simplest way to do that, of course, is to eliminate the foods from your diet that cause those brain-aging spikes. That means skipping things made with added sugar and limiting the rest of the carbs. Plus, avoiding all empty junk carbs and eliminating ultra-processed foods.
There are also natural therapies that can help support healthier blood sugars, such as cinnamon and chromium.
I’ve got even more drug-free ways to tame raging blood sugar in this free report. The last one on the list is a personal favorite of mine.
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