It highlights “the importance of managing blood sugar not just overall, but specifically after meals,” Mason added. Blood sugar spikes , also known as glucose spikes, are when the amount of glucose in a person’s blood rises sharply. “The genes linked to bigger post-meal glucose spikes appear in around 40% of the population on average,” Mason explained to Medical News Today. However, the researchers found that people with genes related to higher blood sugar after eating were also 69% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s. There was no relationship between Alzheimer’s disease and fasting blood sugar, fasting insulin, or insulin resistance.