One of the main information that has been made public this week on the occasion of the Congress of the ADA in San Francisco, says that children with type 1 diabetes have slower brain growth, compared to children without diabetes.
A statement confirming a new study led by Dr. Nelly Mauras at Nemours Children’s Health System in Jacksonville, Florida (USA).
The information ensures that there are significant differences in brain growth and in the regional gray and white matter.
Based on a series of three studies of structural magnetic resonance imaging.
"Even with the new insulin and technologies that can significantly improve attention, children with type 1 diabetes are still exposed to significant changes in sugar control, which creates potential risks for the developing brain," Mauras explained.
For this reason, understanding the early effects on blood sugar control on brain development "is a necessary step to develop strategies to reduce these risks."
Study objective
In the study, the researchers tried to determine to what extent exposure to glycemia has an adverse impact on brain growth in children with early start type diabetes.To do this, the investigation included 138 children with diabetes with an average age of seven years.The participants had an average duration of 2.4 years at the beginning of the project.
Similarly, the total accumulated hyperglycemia exposure was determined using blood sugar for life, using A1C (HBA1C) hemoglobin values from the time of diagnosis.
The study result
The result of this investigation was that the group with diabetes had a slower brain growth, specifically of the total gray and white substance and white subcortical than the control group at all temporal points.In particular, a set of metabolically active brain regions associated with other brain disorders, known as ‘network by default’, showed less growth in the diabetes group compared to the control group.Thus, these slower growth regions were associated with a higher level of sugar in life, measured by HBA1C values.
On these results around brain growth, the main author has concluded that “ongoing research is studying whether the diligent maintenance of blood sugar levels in the normal range through advanced technologies in diabetes could affect these findingsto reduce the risk of cognitive dysfunction ».