Study Links Middle Age Obesity to Dementia
(London, AP, 4/29/05)

Using funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), California researchers, led by Dr. Rachel Whitmer of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Foundation, tracked 10,276 adults for an average of 27 years. Investigators gave the subjects detailed health exams from the mid-1960s to the early ‘70s and assessed the participants' obesity by calculating body mass index and also by measuring the thickness of skin folds under the shoulder blades and under the arms. The researchers found that the more obese a person was, the greater their risk for developing dementia later in life, as compared to normal weight individuals. The scientists speculate that inflammatory chemicals produced by fat cells may pass into the brain.

(British Medical Journal, online, April 2005)