According to new research diabetesdoes more than affect your heart, eyes and kidneys; it also increases your riskof getting Alzheimer's disease. While another research indicated that patternsof brain shrinkage seen on MRI scans indicated the development of Alzheimer's.

Dr. Wouter J. P. Henneman, at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, and colleagues reported in the medical journal Neurology, "Especially with the prospect of disease-modifying therapies, early detection and monitoring of progression are important research goals in Alzheimer's disease."

The research team in order to unravel how different brain changes might be linked to neurological conditions studied MRI scans of 64 Alzheimer's patients, 44 patients with mild cognitive impairment, and 34 unaffected people who served as "controls."

After the interval of 1.8 years a repeat scans were taken and they showed that three of the control group and 23 patients who had MCI had progressed to Alzheimer's disease. In the control group those who had a small hippocampus -- a structure in the brain involved in forming and storing memories - had a fivefold increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The rate of shrinkage of the hippocampus also resulted in a similar risk.

The researchers reported that both a small hippocamal volume as well as a high shrinkage rate was associated with 61 time's greater odds of developing Alzheimer's. The risks of these combined factors were reduced to a 20 fold increase in the case of people who already had mild cognitive impairment The researchers concluded, "Regional measures of hippocampal atrophy are the strongest predictors of progression to Alzheimer's disease."

In a second study diabetes was seen to increase the risk of Alzheimer's. The link between diabetes and Alzheimer's could be as diabetes has long been suspected to damage blood vessels that supply the brain but researchers said that the damage could likely start way before someone is diagnosed to be a diabetic, while the body is slowly losing its ability to regulate blood sugar.

Dr. Yaakov Stern, an Alzheimer's specialist at Columbia University Medical Center said, "Right now we can't do much about the Alzheimer's disease pathology. But, "if you could control these vascular conditions, you might slow the course of the disease."

In the study published in a special issue of Archives of Neurology hundreds of healthy, aging New York City residents underwent testing allowing scientists to catch the earliest indications of dementia. 156 people who developed Alzheimer's were tracked by Stern and he found that those who had a history of diabetes and high cholesterol worsened faster.

Dr. Suzanne Craft of the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System said that insulin influences memory in a variety of ways, and an insulin-resistant body in turn affects brain cells' insulin-related activity.

Dr. Ralph Nixon of New York University, vice chairman of the Alzheimer's Association's scientific advisory council said that genetics still are the prime risk factor for dementia. "It by no means means that you're going to develop Alzheimer's disease, and certainly many people with Alzheimer's don't have diabetes," he cautions.

As a precautionary measure for healthy people Nixon advises "hedging your bets against Alzheimer's" with the same steps that help prevent both diabetes and heart disease - a good diet and plenty of exercise.