I’ve long warned that excess abdominal fat carries health risks. Heart disease, stroke, diabetes and death from any cause are higher in people who sport spare tires or pot bellies. Perhaps even more worrisome, excess fat around the middle can impair mental acuity, according to research published earlier this year.
Changes to the brain accumulate over time and may lead to dementia. Based on the report, those jelly bellies and love handles that seem so innocuous may slowly but stealthily cause us harm.
How concerned should you be about the brain-belly connection and what can you do?
Research results
The study involved more than 6,000 men and women enrolled in Kaiser Permanente of Northern California. Researchers looked at abdominal girth measurements when members were age 40 to 45, then compared the results with participants’ mental function 36 years later.
What they found was surprising: Those with excess belly fat during middle age were more likely to have developed late-life dementia.
At the end of the study, when all the participants were between 73 and 87 years old, about 16 percent were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia or unspecified dementia. Those with the largest bellies had nearly a threefold increased risk of dementia compared to men and women with the smallest bellies.
The researchers controlled for age, gender, race, education, marital status, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, amount of medical care and weight. Not only does dementia risk increase with enlarging waist size, the researchers found, but excess belly fat also affects people of all weights and sizes.
For example, people of normal weight with a large belly had almost twice the dementia risk as those with a normal weight and waist size. The risk was 2.3 times greater for those who were overweight and had large bellies, and 3.6 times greater for those who were obese and had large bellies.
In contrast, people with a family history of Alzheimer’s disease have double the risk of developing the disease compared to people with no family history.
The researchers say that midlife waist size measurements are less biased by the aging process than those taken later in life. “To our knowledge, this is the first study to report an independent association of midlife (abdominal) obesity with an increased risk of dementia,” conclude the researchers.
What’s the cause?
Scientists have an explanation for how the brain-belly connection might work. It’s well known that the fat around your gut (visceral fat) is more metabolically active than fat under your skin (subcutaneous fat). The kinds of hormones and chemicals that visceral fat cells produce wreak havoc by increasing inflammation around the body. Besides increasing heart-disease risk, inflammatory changes such as redness, swelling and irritation can damage brain cells. A lifetime of exposure to a revved-up metabolic and inflammatory state may eventually progress to dementia.
Other studies have shown loss of volume in certain areas of the brain in people with abdominal obesity. The changes start in middle adulthood and progress into old age.
What you can do
The easiest way to check how much harmful abdominal fat you have is to measure your waist circumference. If it’s more than 35 inches in women, or 40 inches in men, consult your doctor.
The good news is that excess fat comes off your abdomen faster than the rest of your body. In one study, overweight women who began a brisk walking program lost 4 percent of total body fat and 7 percent of abdominal fat in a year.
For more information: American Academy of Neurology, www.aan.com.
Contact Dr. Elizabeth Smoots at doctor@practicalpreention.com.
&Copy; 2008 Elizabeth S. Smoots
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