HEADLINES Published June1, 2015 By Milafel Hope Dacanay

The Interesting Link between Type 2 Diabetes and ALS

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There's a new study about ALS, and it has a very interesting conclusion: type 2 diabetes seems to reduce the risk of being diagnosed with ALS especially in the old age.

ALS and type 2 diabetes are completely two different diseases with very serious effects. Also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS is characterized by the degeneration of the nerve cells found in the brain and the spinal cord. It's a progressive disorder that leads to weakness and ultimately difficulty in doing basic functions such as speaking, eating, standing, and breathing. Many of the patients live for only 2 to 3 years after the diagnosis.

Type 2 diabetes, meanwhile, is one of the 3 different kinds of diabetes. It is considered as a metabolic disorder since it develops in relation to obesity, high cholesterol, and hypertension. Unlike ALS, type 2 diabetes can be controlled with proper medications and change of lifestyle, although when left unchecked, it can also lead to complications such as kidney disease and nerve damage.

In a Danish study led by Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou from Harvard School of Public Health, despite the differences between the two, there seems to be a link-that is, diabetes reduces the risk of ALS.

For the research, they used the national registers to look into more than 3,000 cases of individuals with 65 as the average age diagnosed with ALS from 1982 to 2009. Their data were then compared to more than 300,000 people who were considered healthy.

They also checked the medical records of over 9,000 patients with type 2 diabetes. However, less than 60 of them developed ALS despite their old age.

Although the researchers don't really know how type 2 diabetes is capable of reducing such risk (as obesity doesn't lead to risk reduction), they believe that the study is a good way to look into other possible causes of ALS. 

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