The American Diabetes Association reports that 8.3 percent of the U.S. population has diabetes. Among the health complications that can arise due to this disease are high blood pressure, blindness and amputations. Now, there is research that shows diabetes may reduce the size of the brain among elderly individuals.

Australian researchers have found that diabetes and fluctuating blood sugar levels can be linked to a reduction in the size of older adults’ frontal lobe. This, in turn, can have an impact on these individuals’ long-term memory, emotional control and ability to make decisions.

The researchers arrived at these findings after comparing magnetic resonance imaging scans from 312 elderly Australians with an average age of 78. At the onset of the study, 41 percent of these participants had pre-diabetes and 13 percent had type 2 diabetes.

After two years, the researchers learned that individuals whose glucose levels had worsened, as well as those who had type 2 diabetes at the beginning of the study, lost 2.3 times as much brain volume as participants with stable glucose levels.

Based on this research, individuals with diabetes may want to take an IQ test as they grow older to see if there are any changes in the quality of their cognitive abilities.