be a risk factor for hardening the arteries, and hardening the arteries as it affects the brain in turn can cause strokes, mini or otherwise, and lead to what's now being called vascular dementia. >> and the next step? understanding if reducing sugar by taking insulin could help with the symptoms of alzheimer's. >> the idea that insulin might actually improve brain functioning in people with alzheimer's disease really is a novel approach to treating the dementia of alzheimer's disease. >> reporter: research is already under way for insulin therapy for alzheimer's. jim avila, abc news, new york. >> and patients that are certainly excited to see this kind of research happening, one statistic they point out is about six times more is spent on aids research than alzheimer's. >> and there's a lot of fear that as the number of alzheimer's cases skyrocket that medicaid and medicare can't keep up. so this is really becoming a national problem. >> exactly. a group of religious leaders has returned to the u.s., confident that the american