As if menopause is not enough of an assault on a woman’s body, couple it with type two diabetes, sleep apnea and inflammation, and there is a destructive combination that might lead to dementia in later life.
With a $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, Stacey Gorniak, associate professor of health and human performance, wants to learn how these factors predispose women to dementia.
Gorniak will focus on underrepresented women who have the highest risk for dementia development and are all but absent in research, which to-date has included only white non-Hispanics.
“Adult females who belong to underrepresented racial and ethnic groups are most negatively impacted by risks and complications associated with type two diabetes,” said Gorniak.
These include functional impairment in cognitive and sensorimotor actions.
“The severity of these complications has been described as everything from ‘devastating’ to ‘difficult to control’,”she added.
Gorniak will recruit 20 women with type two diabetes (aged 30-65) within the greater Houston area, assessing also those who are perimenopausal.
She will collect pilot data from the women to help identify the specific sex-hormone, inflammation and obstructive sleep apnea associations with lower cortical tissue oxygen use and functional impairment that occurs with type two diabetes.
Obstructive sleep apnea occurs in 50-86% of people with type two diabetes.
“By better understanding how inflammation, hormone status and presence of sleep disorders work together to impact memory and brain function in middle aged women, we can potentially improve early diagnostic markers and develop comprehensive treatment plans for women who show an early indication of dementia or are at high risk for conversion to dementia,” said Gorniak.
In previous work Gorniak provided insight into the compound contributions of menopause and inflammation to cortical tissue oxygen use and functional impairment in underrepresented postmenopausal women with type two diabetes.
“Our project aligns with the National Institute of Aging objectives and priorities to identify strategies to effectively prevent or delay age-related diseases, including dementias such as vascular dementia,” she said.
Gorniak will lead a Houston-based investigative team to carry out the work.