The Relationship Between Diabetes and Epilepsy

It is believed that people with grade I diabetes suffer from epilepsy attacks three times more often than people who do not have this disease. Scientists from the Medical University of China (Taiwan) became interested in the problem. Their study confirmed the hypothesis and indicated a high risk of developing neurological disorders in diabetics. They showed that the presence of an elevated blood sugar level, as well as its significant lack, can provoke motor seizures of the focal type.Among the causes of occurrence that link epilepsy with diabetes, there are many common factors. These are organic brain lesions, genetic imbalance, metabolic disorders and immune shifts in the body. To assess how much type I diabetes affects the occurrence and development of epilepsy, computer modeling was used.

The study of Dr. Ai-Ching Chow

The field of study included more than 2.5 thousand people with a history of diabetes and 10 people without the disease who were part of the control group. It turned out that diabetics have a 2.84-fold higher chance of developing epileptic seizures than healthy people.

Dr. Ai-Ching Chow, under whose supervision the study was conducted, commented on its results as follows: “The data obtained by us confirm the previously conducted experimental studies that revealed the presence of seizures in people with inflammatory and autoimmune disorders in the body.” The data are presented in more detail in the journal Diabetologia.

Sugar provokes epileptic seizures

The ketogenic diet does not exclude sugar from the diet of epileptics for nothing. The sweet enemy of humanity is endowed with zero utility and serves as a source of negative transformations in the human body. By consuming sugar, you get used to it, which causes a strong attachment to the product. This increases the risk of diabetes and an increase in the number of seizures in people with epilepsy. A medical drug for the treatment of epilepsy that can be ordered online cheap Keppra.

A 2012 study led by Dr. Jimenez-Cassin and his colleagues confirmed this fact when mice after eating a large amount of sweets began to show convulsive seizures. Doctors recommend eliminating the use of sugar in epileptics and significantly reducing the natural sugars that come with fruits (bananas, grapes, pears, etc.). This will help to reduce the frequency of seizures and improve the quality of life of epileptics.

Epilepsy against the background of type 1 diabetes mellitus: causes and treatment of seizures is a common complication of diabetes mellitus. Almost all patients with this chronic disease suffer from them. In most diabetics, seizures manifest themselves in the form of sharp and very severe pain in the arms and legs. Such attacks most often occur at night and cause serious suffering to patients.

But in some people with a diagnosis of diabetes, seizures manifest themselves differently. They affect all the muscles of the body, causing their intense contraction and often provoking uncontrolled movement of the limbs. With such attacks, a person often falls to the ground and may even lose consciousness.

Such seizures are most often observed in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and are similar in their symptoms to epileptic seizures. But can epilepsy develop against the background of type 1 diabetes mellitus and what can provoke such attacks? These are the questions that most often interest patients with “juvenile” diabetes.

According to endocrinologists, diabetes mellitus cannot provoke the development of epilepsy in a patient. But this disease often causes seizures, which have almost similar symptoms. However, there is still a difference between epilepsy and diabetic seizures.

So epileptic seizures have a very long duration and last from 15 minutes or more. While seizures in diabetes are characterized by short-term attacks, which on average last 3-5 minutes and never last more than a quarter of an hour.

In addition, epilepsy is a disease in which seizures occur with a certain frequency and it is possible to increase the intervals between seizures only with the help of long-term treatment. In diabetics, seizures occur much less often and have no periodicity. As a rule, they are manifested in patients who have failed to achieve effective control of blood sugar levels.

The causes of epileptic seizures lie in the violation of the electrical activity of the brain. Modern scientists have not yet been able to come to a consensus on what causes epilepsy. But as it was found, the probability of developing this disease increases markedly with some ailments, namely:

• Birth defects of the brain;
• Benign and malignant brain tumors, including cysts;
• Ischemic or hemorrhoidal stroke;
• Chronic alcoholism;
• Infectious diseases of the brain: encephalitis, meningitis, brain abscess;
• Traumatic brain injuries;
• Drug addiction, especially when using amphetamines, cocaine, ephedrine;
• Long-term use of the following medications: antidepressants, antipsychotics, antibiotics, bronchodilators;
• Antiphospholipid syndrome;
• Multiple sclerosis.

Diabetes mellitus is not on this list, since diabetic seizures have a slightly different nature. The cause of seizures in diabetes, which many people take for epileptic seizures, is hypoglycemia – a sharp drop in blood sugar levels.