What do your favorite wool sweater, your retirement savings account and your brain have in common? They’re all better off if they don’t shrink! But the brains of millions of Americans and Canadians with slightly elevated blood sugar levels are at risk for just that!

One study making headlines found that even a little extra blood glucose shrivels gray matter. Seems the hippocampus (memories) and amygdala (thinking) areas of the brain grew smaller in women and men whose blood sugar was in the prediabetes range, about 110 mg/dL on a fasting blood sugar test. (And if you progress from prediabetes to diabetes, as most people eventually do, you’ll accelerate shrinkage even more!)