Quicker Dementia Linked to Obesity and Heart Disease

Obesity, along with the diabetes and heart disease that often accompany it, can quicken the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, according to a series of four recent studies, which also point to the importance of adopting practices aimed at early prevention of brain ills.
   
“This is an important message,” said Ronald C. Petersen, chairman of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Council of the Alzheimer’s Association and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the Mayo Clinic. He was not involved in the studies, which were published in the journal Neurology. “Development of cognitive decline need not be a passive process. We are not all just sitting here and aging, and sooner or later it’s going to hit us. In fact, there may be some modifiable lifestyle factors that may influence our risk of developing cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease down the road.”

Kristine Yaffe, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, and director of the Memory Disorders Clinic at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, performed two studies. Her first study, using data on 4,895 women, with an average age of 66, who had no cognitive impairment at the start of the study, found that 7 percent of the 497 women with so-called metabolic syndrome – a condition in which there is belly obesity, high blood pressure and low levels of “good” cholesterol – developed cognitive impairment, compared with 4 percent of the women without the syndrome.
   
In Yaffe’s second study, the research team used data on 3,054 older men and women. Participants took a test at the beginning of the study and then three, five and eight years later. Obese men (but not women) were more likely to exhibit signs of cognitive impairment, a condition of pre-dementia.
   
A third study discovered that, while obesity in middle-aged people raised dementia risk, those at greatest risk for dementia after age 65 were actually underweight people. At this age, obesity even seemed to protect against cognitive problems. The work was carried out by Annette L. Fitzpatrick, a research associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, in Seattle
   
The fourth report, performed by Elizabeth P. Helzner and colleagues from Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, showed that people with Alzheimer’s who had higher levels of total cholesterol and “bad” cholesterol experienced faster decline in brain function.

The study, the authors said, “provides further evidence for the role of vascular [blood flow] risk factors in the course of Alzheimer’s disease. Prevention or treatment of these conditions can potentially slow the course of Alzheimer’s disease.”

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