Forgetting about big belly now may mean forgetfulness later

by William Atkins

Sunday, 30 March 2008

Page 1 of 2 ! An American-Swedish study has shown that a large amount of abdominal fat when people are in their 40s leads to an increased chance of dementia in their 70s. Previous to this study, the researchers found that many studies had been conducted on the relationship between the amount of abdominal fat and the increased risk of getting cardiovascular disease, strokes, heart attacks, and diabetes. However, the researchers found that a study had not been performed on the relationship between the amount of abdominal fat and dementia. Dementia is a medical condition characterized by memory loss, confusion, and disorientation with one’s surroundings. It occurs primarily with the elderly, in such forms as Alzheimer’s disease, but can occur much earlier. About 10% of people over the age of 65 years suffer from Alzheimer’s disease in the United States. Thus, they decided to perform a study on mid-life abdominal obesity (in a person’s 40s) and dementia (in a person’s 70s). The researchers of this study include: R. A. Whitmer and E. P. Gunderson (Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, Oakland, California), D. R. Gustafson (Goteberg University, Goteberg, Sweden), E. Barrett-Connor (Department of Family Medicine, University of California, La Jolla), M. N. Haan (Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), and K. Yaffe (Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology and Epidemiology, University of California, San Francisco). Their paper, which states their conclusions to dementia and belly fat is entitled “Central obesity and increased risk of dementia more than three decades later .” It appears in the March 26, 2008 issue of the journal Neurology,  The researchers studied 6,583 people from northern California (United States) who were between 40 and 45 years old between 1964 and 1973. They all had their abdominal fat measured at the Kaiser Permanente of Northern California. The test measured sagittal abdominal diameter (SAD), or a measure of the size of a person’s belly. Specifically, it is the distance from the back to the upper abdomen, while standing up, midway between the top of the pelvis and the bottom of the ribs. Then, the subjects were studied again between January 1, 1994 and June 16, 2006, for dementia. It was found that 15.9% of them were diagnosed with dementia—a total of 1,049. The risk from dementia was standardized due to the subjects’ age, gender, education, race, marital status, medical conditions, and other relevant factors. What did the study find? Please read on. << First page <   1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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