A new study has found that obesity and high blood pressure are not just risk factors but direct causes of dementia.
The research, published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, highlights how managing body weight and blood pressure could be key to preventing this devastating brain disease.
Dementia is a serious and growing global health problem. It leads to the loss of memory, thinking ability, and judgment, and currently has no cure.
The most common types of dementia include Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and mixed dementia. Over time, the disease damages brain cells and makes it harder for people to function in their daily lives.
In this recent study, researchers looked at people from Copenhagen, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. They found clear proof that having a high body mass index (BMI) and high blood pressure can directly lead to dementia.
According to Dr. Ruth Frikke-Schmidt, the lead author and a professor at Copenhagen University Hospital, this opens up a new chance to prevent dementia by focusing on weight and blood pressure control.
The team used a method called Mendelian randomization, which is like a genetic version of a clinical trial. Instead of giving people medicine, they used common gene variations linked to higher BMI as a natural way to study the effects of weight.
These genetic variants are randomly passed from parents to children, just like participants in drug trials are randomly assigned to treatment or placebo groups. This helps researchers avoid confusion from outside factors and gives more accurate results.
Using this approach, the researchers were able to show that high BMI has a direct effect on increasing dementia risk. They also found that a lot of this risk may be due to high blood pressure, which often goes hand-in-hand with obesity. This means that treating high blood pressure early could also help prevent dementia later on.
Dr. Frikke-Schmidt stressed the importance of taking action. “This study shows that high body weight and high blood pressure are not just warning signs, but direct causes of dementia,” she said. “That makes them highly actionable targets for prevention.”
Some medications designed for weight loss have already been tested to see if they can stop cognitive decline in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. So far, these trials have not shown any positive effects. However, Dr. Frikke-Schmidt suggested that starting weight-loss treatment earlier—before any signs of memory loss—might still help protect the brain.
She believes that early action, especially to prevent vascular dementia (which is linked to blood flow problems in the brain), could make a real difference. This study adds strong evidence that addressing obesity and high blood pressure early in life is important not just for heart health, but also for brain health.
In conclusion, the research offers hope that simple lifestyle changes or treatments targeting weight and blood pressure could help reduce the number of people who develop dementia. With no current cure available, prevention may be one of the best strategies we have.
If you care about dementia, please read studies about dietary strategies to ward off dementia, and how omega-3 fatty acids fuel your mind.
For more health information, please see recent studies about Choline deficiency linked to Alzheimer’s disease, and what to eat (and avoid) for dementia prevention.
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