In a new study from the University of South Australia, researchers found that harmful body fat not only increases waistline but also the risk of dementia.
Examining grey brain matter of about 28,000 people, they showed that increased body fat incrementally leads to increased atrophy of grey matter in the brain and consequently higher risk of declining brain health.
Grey matter is an essential part of the brain responsible for execution control, muscular and sensory activity as well as learning, attention, and memory.
Obesity is a major issue worldwide, with numbers nearly tripling since 1975. Data from the World Health Organization shows that more than 1.9 billion adults are overweight, with 650 million being obese.
Being overweight generally increases the risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and low-grade inflammation.
In this study, the team examined the genetic data of up to 336,000 individual records in the UK Biobank, with self-reported information and linked hospital and death register records to connect dementia and stroke.
They found that middle to elderly age groups (37-73) grey brain matter decreased by 0.3% for every extra 1 kg/m2, which is equivalent of an extra 3 kg of weight for a person of average height individuals, (173 cm).
They found that people with higher levels of obesity especially those with metabolically unfavorable and neutral adiposity subtypes had much lower levels of grey brain matter.
This means that these people may have compromised brain function.
The team says it is increasingly appreciated that obesity is a complex condition and that especially excess fat which is located around the internal organs has particularly harmful effects on health.
Here, they used the individuals’ genetic and metabolic profiles to confirm different types of obesity. In practice, these findings very much support the need to look at the type of obesity when assessing the type of likely health impact.
If you care about dementia, please read studies about treating this sleep problem may reduce dementia risk and findings of big loss of pleasure linked to early dementia.
For more information about dementia and your health, please see recent studies about having these 2 health problems may double your dementia risk and results showing that this mental problem can help predict dementia years before memory loss.
The study is published in the Neurobiology of Aging. One author of the study is Dr Anwar Mulugeta.
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