Medical reports on diabetes, Alzheimer's, and vitamin D

Diabetes is not limited to high blood sugar levels, but it can also be associated with an increased risk of developing some health problems, including kidney stones. The relationship between the two conditions appears to be related to the changes caused by high blood sugar in the way the kidneys work and the composition of urine.

Diabetes can significantly increase your risk of developing kidney stones. It is estimated that this painful problem is about twice as common in people with type 1 diabetes, and the risk of developing it increases by up to 60 percent in people with type 2 diabetes, according to the Diabetes Daily website.

Kidney stones form when minerals and salts in the urine collect to form small, hard clumps. Small stones may pass through the urinary tract without causing any symptoms, while larger stones can cause very severe pain as they move, as they may obstruct the flow of urine from the kidney to the bladder.

Dr. Christopher Haas, a urologist, says: “The passage of a kidney stone often leads to sudden, severe and unexpected pain in the back, whether on the left or right side, and may extend to include the groin area, accompanied by nausea and vomiting that hinder the practice of daily life.”

Kidney stones can also cause other symptoms, including: pain or a burning feeling during urination, pink, red, or brown urine, frequent need to urinate, fever or chills, and cloudy or foul-smelling urine.

High blood sugar changes the way the kidneys filter waste, which may make urine more acidic. Dr. Haas adds that highly acidic urine creates an environment that allows uric acid crystals and calcium oxalate crystals to clump together and form stones, and diabetes also changes how the kidneys deal with calcium and water.

When studying Alzheimer's disease, researchers have long been interested in what happens inside the brain, particularly the buildup of amyloid-beta plaques and tau protein tangles. But a new study indicates that an important part of the problem may start far from the brain, specifically in the bone marrow, where immune system cells are formed.

Researchers found that Alzheimer's disease disrupts the process of producing a type of immune cell in the bone marrow, which limits the ability of these cells to reach the brain and help confront the pathological changes associated with the disease. Experiments on mice also showed that interfering with this mechanism led to restoring the production of these cells and improving some aspects of the disease, according to the Independent newspaper.

In the study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists found that monocytes suffer from a dysfunction associated with Alzheimer's disease. The study showed that stem cells in the bone marrow of mice with Alzheimer's matured and transformed into specialized cells very early.

A recent study showed that taking vitamin D supplements in elderly people who already have sufficient levels of it may be associated with a faster decline in some cognitive abilities, but the researchers stressed that the results do not prove that the supplements are the direct cause, according to what was reported by the “Very Well Health” health website.

The study, published in the journal BMJ Open, included 5,065 elderly people over a period of 6 years. The researchers found that the use of supplements among people who get enough vitamin D was associated with worse performance in memory, attention, and speed of processing information.

Neurologist Augusto Miravalli warned against interpreting the results as evidence that vitamin D harms the brain, pointing to the possibility of “reverse causation,” as people who are more susceptible to cognitive decline may resort to taking supplements. Most adults need about 600 to 800 international units of vitamin D daily, with a warning against exceeding 10,000 international units without medical supervision.