Brain Insulin Resistance and Disease.

 Insulin Resistance of brain tissue leads to both Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.  We have heard about insulin resistance but until recently this seemed to be something that led to bad outcomes with the heart, led to obesity, and decreased overall fitness. In fact, when insulin resistance in the periphery of the body is magnified over time, it leads to similar responses in the brain.  Unfortunately, this in turn increases neruofibrillary tangle formation, the hallmark of Azheimer’s disease.   It additionally leads to dopamine loss promoting the motor abnormality symptoms seen in Parkinson’s disease.  Our bodies have the ability to clean up these mishaps through autophagy.  Autophagy is the body’s mechanism of cleaning up unused proteins and cells.  There is a new research focus of what we can do to turn autophagy on in our systems to better combat this dilemma.

Kakoty, A., et al. Brain insulin resistance linked Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease pathology: An undying implication of epigenetic and autophagy modulation. Inflammopharmacology.  March 2023. 

Fasting, exercise, calorie restriction, and the ingestion of polyphenols all seem to upregulate this process.

Jason & Rita