Alzheimer's Disease and Diabetes Mellitus

This paper reviews various studies have reported the relationship of diabetes mellitus (DM) with Alzheimer's disease (AD). In the past decade has increased the number of studies on finding new evidence of the relationship between DM and AD. The DM and AD share many clinical and biochemical characteristics: elevation of oxidative stress, inflammation, vascular dysfunction, altered lipid metabolism, hypercholesterolemia, increased formation of advanced glycation end products, mitochondrial pathology and altered glucose metabolism (sensitivity to insulin and insulin- like growth factor) suggesting common pathogenic mechanisms. Recently it has been established that inflammation in the central nervous and peripheral system is the link between DM with EA. It was also confirmed that the defective insulin signaling and mitochondrial dysfunction are common features in AD and DM. Despite the important findings, full understanding of both disease processes are needed to determine whether these conditions share the same therapeutic targets for more effective treatments and even halt the progression of AD