[Diabetes-talk] (no subject)

[Nef]

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Impairment of Self-Control in Type 2 Diabetics

Type-2 diabetes, an increasingly common complication of obesity, is
associated with poor impulse control. Researchers writing in BioMed
Central's open access journal BioPsychoSocial Medicine suggest that
neurological changes result in this inability to resist temptation,
which may in turn exacerbate diabetes.

Hiroaki Kumano, from Waseda University, Japan, worked with a team of
researchers to assess response inhibition, a measure of self-control,
in 27 patients with type-2 diabetes and 27 healthy controls. He said,
"Patients with type 2 diabetes are required to make strict daily
decisions; for example, they should resist the temptation of high-fat,
high-calorie food, which is frequently cued by specific people, places
and events. Appropriate behavior modification thus depends on the
patient's ability to inhibit impulsive thoughts and actions cued by
these environmental stimuli".

In order to gauge the patients' ability to resist such impulsive
behavior, the researchers used a test in which participants had to
quickly press a button in response to the correct signal on a computer
screen, while pressing the button in response to the wrong symbol
counted against their score. They found that patients with diabetes
performed significantly worse at the test, suggesting that they
struggled to control the impulse to press the button. Other results
showed that the inhibitory failure observed in diabetic patients was
mainly explained by cognitive impairment of impulsivity control,
rather than by deficits in motor performance, error monitoring and
adjustment. According to Kumano, "This suggests the possibility that
the neuropsychological deficits in response inhibition may contribute
to the behavioral problems leading to chronic lifestyle-related
diseases, such as type 2 diabetes".

Notes:
Decreased response inhibition in middle-aged male patients with type 2 diabetes
Kaya T Ishizawa, Hiroaki Kumano, Atsushi Sato, Hiroshi Sakura and
Yasuhiko Iwamoto
BioPsychoSocial Medicine (in press)
Article available at journal website: http://www.bpsmedicine.com/

Source:
Graeme Baldwin
BioMed Central