Even one serious episode ups the risk, study shows
Hypoglycemia, a life-threatening drop in blood sugar usually caused by excess insulin, increases the risk of developing dementia, new research suggests. While several studies have noted that people with Type 2 diabetes are at higher risk of developing it as they age, a new long-term study of thousands of elderly patients with Type 2 diabetes showed that those who experienced even one serious bout of hypoglycemia (serious enough to send them to hospital) were at a 26 per cent higher risk than those who’d never had an episode. Patients who had two episodes saw their risk increase by 80 per cent, and those with three episodes or more had a 94 per cent increased risk. The study will be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.