When we are young and are eating a healthy diet, there are minimal fluctuations in the level of blood glucose. This is not very exciting because blood glucose doesn't get too high or too low. But that's exactly how things should work. However, as we get older the body is not as efficient at regulating and controlling blood glucose. As a result, the swings get bigger -- too high at some times and too low at others. What we eat can have the same effect. A sugary meal or snack can send blood glucose sky rocketing minutes after the meal ... and then plummeting down below normal an hour later. As a matter of fact, this is a fairly common occurrence today and is easily observed at work. Look around at your coworkers an hour or so after lunch. What do you see? Most of them are ready for a nap. They are sluggish and inefficient. This is what happens when glucose levels fall. Why? Because the brain burns glucose and when it's main fuel supply is not available, it suffers. Mental brownouts occur, energy levels fall and mental torpor is the result. Clearly, these dramatic glucose fluctuations are not good for the brain. This is what I call the Roller Coaster Effect.

Most of us think immediately about diabetes when a doctor mentions blood sugar problems. Now it appears that memory loss and Alzheimer disease might  be just around the corner. This is due to the Roller Coaster Effect. We have just discussed why so many of us feel sleepy and just not very sharp after lunch. Let's look at a more extreme example of the same thing. We all know people who were diagnosed with childhood diabetes (Type 1 diabetes, or "insulin-dependent" diabetes) because they are always checking their glucose level and injecting themselves with insulin shots throughout the day. One of the major complications this group of individuals experience is low blood glucose -- or hypoglycemia. When this occurs they can feel jittery, light-headed or even sleepy. If the condition goes uncorrected, and the blood sugar becomes quite low, they think more slowly and may even become comatose. This is related to low blood glucose and the resultant lack of an energy supply for the brain. It causes power outages and loss of mental function. These periods of low glucose represent the dips in the roller coaster ride.

Brain researchers have recently discovered a link between brain health and high blood glucose levels. At first, this may seem counterintuitive because with high glucose levels one would think that the brain would be happy. However, such appears not to be the case. Over the past couple of years, researchers have starting connecting the link between elevated blood sugar and and elevated risk for Alzheimer disease. That is now a well-known fact. More recently, a study presented by Swedish scientists showed that simply experiencing higher than normal blood sugar levels may be enough to potentially lead to Alzheimer disease.

The number of individuals this affects is not trivial. More than 40 million Americans fall into this category. They are in the "pre-diabetic" group. It is well known that obesity is a risk factor for memory loss and more serious conditions. Now we can add to this the Roller Coaster Effect -- that is, poor control of blood sugar.

What concerns many public health officials about these recent findings is that Alzheimer disease is expected to increase fourfold in the next four decades as baby boomers live longer. Now, in addition to living longer, we have a huge pool of aging Americans with increasingly more abnormal blood glucose control, another potent risk factor for these afflictions. It now appears that aging and poor glucose control are going to dramatically magnify the numbers of Americans developing Alzheimer disease. As a result, many researchers are worried that Alzheimer's will swamp health care systems worldwide.

More recently, investigators at Columbia University found that even modest swings in blood sugar levels can lead to memory loss severe enough to affect everyday function. These sugar fluctuations can be subtle enough not to even be considered a disease state!

One of the major processing regions for memory function is called the hippocampus. Subjects with abnormal blood glucose levels were found to have decreased hippocampal volumes compared to subjects with normal blood glucose levels.

To make matters worse, other researchers have noted an association with poor blood glucose control and the buildup in the brain of sticky clumps of protein that lead to the development of senile plaques -- the hallmarks of Alzheimer disease.

How can blood sugar be controlled? Eating properly and  exercising! The same recommendations that insure a healthy body. So get started now and avoid the Roller Coaster Effect!