Overweight and Obesity Linked to Lower Brain Volume

No, fat people, it has nothing to do with loudness.

"Overweight and obese individuals have significantly lower brain volume than their normal-weight counterparts, a finding researchers say puts these individuals at much greater risk for dementia, including Alzheimer's disease.

Results from a new imaging study reveal that, on average, obese subjects had 8% lower brain volume than normal-weight subjects and overweight subjects had 4% lower brain volume.

"That's a big loss of tissue and it depletes your cognitive reserves, putting you at much greater risk of Alzheimer's and other diseases that attack the brain," principal investigator Paul M. Thompson, PhD, from the Lab of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine, in Los Angeles, California, said in a statement.

The study was published online August 6 in Human Brain Mapping.

Worldwide Problem

It is well known that obesity increases the risk for cardiovascular illness, including diabetes, hypertension, and stroke, all of which increase the risk for cognitive decline and dementia. However, the authors point out, it is not known whether these factors, specifically obesity and type 2 diabetes, are associated with specific patterns of brain atrophy.

The authors note that there are currently more than 1 billion overweight and 300 million obese individuals worldwide. In addition, 40% of men and 45% of women older than 70 years are either obese or have type 2 diabetes."

This explains a lot about politics, AdipOprah's popularity and more.

Valuable research.