According to a new study, diabetes or hypertension can hasten the death in people with Alzheimer’s.

The study has been published in the Nov.4 issue of Neurology and it says that Alzheimer’s patients with diabetes have two times higher chances to die sooner that the people with dementia condition but without diabetes. Similarly, those with Alzheimer’s and hypertension have two-and-a-half times more chances to die sooner than the Alzheimer’s patients with normal blood pressure.

Yaakov Stern, who authored the study, says in an American Acdeamy of Neurology news release: “Different studies say that the average life span of someone diagnosed with Alzheimer’s can be anywhere between three to nine years and for that person and their caregiver every minute is precious. There are controllable factors that can drastically affect how long that person can survive.”

In this study, more than 300 people were involved and it also found that after Alzheimer’s diagnosis Hispanics live longer than withes or blacks. The researchers found that Hispanic lived eight years after diagnosis, blacks five years and non-Hispanic whites about four years.

But the results were no longer significant after adjusting gender and other factors.

“These findings are not significant, but they are somewhat intriguing and further study is required to find whether race affects Alzheimer’s survival time.” Stern added