According to a recent research, having more body fat is a risk factor for adults’ impaired cognitive function, such as processing speed.
Even when the researchers considered cardiovascular risk factors, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, or vascular brain damage, the link between body fat and worse cognitive scores persisted.
This points to an alternative, as-yet unconfirmed routes that relate high body fat to poor cognitive performance.
Nine thousand one hundred sixty-six people were assessed using bioelectrical impedance analysis to determine their total body fat in the research.
Furthermore, 6,733 patients had magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to quantify visceral fat, which is abdominal fat packed around organs.
The MRI also assessed vascular brain damage, regions in the brain impacted by a decreased blood supply in the brain.
The findings were published in JAMA Network Open today.
Our findings imply that methods to avoid or decrease excess body fat may protect cognitive function, as lead author Sonia Anand, a vascular medicine specialist at Hamilton Health Sciences and a professor of medicine at McMaster University’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine (HHS) noted.
She is also a senior scientist at McMaster’s Population Health Research Institute and HHS.
The effect of increased body fat persisted even after adjusting for its effect on increasing cardiovascular risk factors like diabetes and high blood pressure, and vascular brain injury, which should prompt researchers to investigate which other pathways may link excess fat to reduced cognitive function.
Dementia is a Long-Term Consequence of Body Fat
Preserving cognitive function is one of the most excellent methods to avoid dementia in old age, as co-author Eric Smith, a neurologist, scientist, and assistant professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of Calgary said.
According to this research, a perfect diet and physical exercise may help prevent dementia by keeping a healthy weight and body fat percentage.
Smith directs the brain core labs for the two population cohorts employed in this new research: the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) and PURE Mind, a sub-study of the big worldwide Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiological (PURE) project.
The participants ranged in age from 30 to 75, with an average of about 58.
Women made up little more than 56% of the population, and they all resided in either Canada or Poland.
The majority were of White European heritage, with roughly 16% coming from other ethnic groups.
Individuals with a history of cardiovascular disease were not eligible.
The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research all contributed to the CAHHM Research (CIHR).
The PURE-Mind project was supported by several organizations, including the Population Health Research Institute, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
