Obesity May Accelerate Brain Aging

natehoy writes "According to the US News and World Report, a recent study has shown a link between obesity and the loss of neurological tissue. The brains of elderly patients who were obese had on average 8% less tissue than their trimmer counterparts. Overweight patients had brains lighter by about 4%. This could have implications for the onset of dementia illnesses such as Alzheimer's. Just one more risk factor to add to the growing body (no pun intended) of reasons to try and stay trim."

Comments

I also noticed a link

[Monkeedude1212]

Between Obesity and the loss of food in my kitchen.

But seriously - this seems like its leading to a "Overweight people aren't smart enough to care about their health" kind of thing.

These morally chiding "correlation" studies

[elrous0]

Do they even TRY to adjust for the fact that fat people avoid getting health care most of their lives (because they're more likely to get tired of getting harassed by their doctor about their weight every time they go in for even a flu shot), drink more than thin people (getting shit on regularly can have that effect on people), and have crappier jobs than their normal-sized counterparts with the consequent lower incomes and inferior health care (because it's a lot harder to get hired)?

I'm not pretending that obesity has no effect on someone's health. But it just irks the hell out of me that these sensational studies always fail to adjust for these sorts of related factors in favor of the sensational (and grant whoring) headline of "Obesity correlates with such-and-such other calamity." I'm sure you could produce a study arguing that obesity makes you stupid too, by simply failing to adjust for the fact that the obese are often geographically concentrated in areas (like the American South) where public education is shit and poverty is high.

Why don't we just say that fat people are worse than Hitler and be done with it? You know, the way we've already done with anyone who dares smoke anything other than marijuana (which is somehow magically good for you), or who eats meat, or who drives an SUV (which some self-righteous asshole will probably link to sudden infant death syndrome in some future study), or any of the hundred other things that are going to kill us all any day now.

Is it any coincidence that the medical profession was once closely linked to the idea that all illness was caused by immoral behavior?

Re:These morally chiding "correlation" studies

[natehoy]

I think the study adjusts for those factors perfectly well, in fact you're introducing some interesting possibilities as to an explanation for the link. The study (which is small, so we should obviously be cautious about drawing too many conclusions from it) only states that people who are obese appear to have less brain function. A few theories were forwarded to explain the link, but your theory is just as sound, and doesn't disprove the possible link.

Let's follow your chain of events for a moment. John is obese. John avoids his doctor because he's tired of being hassled about his weight. Fair enough - that's pretty common.

John is now in a negative feedback loop. He's receiving almost no advice on his diet, no encouragement to exercise, and probably is understandably demoralized from being called "fatty" and getting unwelcome advice from health freakazoids that he's likely to give up on health maintenance entirely. Poorer nutrition and less exercise mean that John's entire body is going to suffer, including the brain.

It's actually as good a theory as any. Obesity would have a significant correlation with people who are not caring for their overall health properly, and obesity can be both cause and effect in this case. John isn't a bad guy, he's just stuck in a rut, and he's headed for possible trouble.

I know John's story.

I'm 6' 3" and used to weigh very close to 300 pounds. I avoided my doctor for over a decade for the same reason John might.

It's tough to get started losing weight, and having a bunch of skinnyminnies around you crybabying about how you should get off your very large posterior and do something is not, repeat not, helpful. It's demoralizing, and makes the task of getting started look all that much harder.

It took a health scare for me to start the very long, very hard trail, and I'm now down to 215 (still mildly overweight, but I can ride my bike 30 miles a day without any problems). I wish terribly that I had learned my lesson an easier way, but I didn't, and I'm sure being obese for as long as I was will have long-term consequences. But I was where I was, and I understand how very hard it is to get started, and how the general attitude of society toward the obese does not make them want to help themselves. I wanted to just curl up with my Ben and Jerry's and donuts and leave me the hell alone.

I've encouraged several friends over the years to get up and just take short walks with me, and started a couple of them on the road to weight loss, but you've got to approach that sort of overture carefully, and have a sense for when your friend is ready to start helping themselves, then offer them some encouragement.

Re:Bogus stats, however.

[GreenCow]

I sense that you may have some concern over the implications of this study. If you think these results troubling and wish to discredit them, consider asking for a wider study rather than calling it junk science. Their margin of error may be off, but I doubt it's by a significant enough amount to warrant being labeled 'Junk Science'