December 30, 2008
Metabolic Memory Points To Better Early Blood Sugar Control
As if struggling with normal memory overload isn’t enough, now we have to worry about dealing with metabolic memory? Well, the good news is that this has nothing to do with what your brain remembers – it’s all about the memory programmed into your veins when you first start having high blood sugar symptoms. Even after your diabetes symptoms are diagnosed and you get back to a normal blood sugar range, this effect continues to cause problems.
Some new research just published indicates that your veins remember the stress they experienced when you had high blood sugar levels of glycated hemoglobin. That’s the condition when sugar molecules attach themselves to the outside of your red blood cells because your body can’t use insulin to get the energy from the sugar out of the blood and into your organs, muscles and other tissues.
Even if your diabetes control can reduce blood sugar back to normal glucose levels, your microvascular system can continue to signal the body that it’s still under stress. We don’t have all the answers yet, but it appears to be related to the inflammation caused by what I call the rust effect – the glycated hemoglobin trying to muscle its way through the tiny veins, even though there’s really not enough room for the extra molecule of attached sugar.
So far, it looks like the best way to relieve this metabolic memory is to get back to a normal blood sugar level as soon as possible, so there’s less of this kind of damage to begin with. This means that early diagnosis is even more important than ever, as well as doing everything possible to reduce blood sugar as quickly as you can.
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