Andreas Hahn und Thamar Triebel, Hannover

Alzheimer‘s dementia is one of the most frequent diseases of the aged. There are now many lines of evidence that suggest that carbohydrate metabolism is disordered in Alzheimer’s disease and that this disorder contributes to the initiation of the dementia.

One of the first indications of the pathogenetic significance of disorders of carbohydrate metabolism was the increase in the risk of dementia in patients with diabetes mellitus in observational studies. Moreover, Alzheimer patients exhibit several signs of insulin resistance, including reduced activity of the insulin receptor tyrosine kinase and of several other components of the insulin signalling system. Cerebral insulin resistance is presumably the cause of the low levels of cerebral glucose metabolism, which have far reaching consequences for neurodegeneration.

Keywords: Alzheimer‘s disease, dementia, diabetes, insulin, insulin resistance, glucose

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