Being Overweight Reduces Dementia Risk

jones_supa writes Being overweight cuts the risk of dementia, according to the largest and most precise investigation into the relationship (abstract). The researchers were surprised by the findings, which run contrary to current health advice. The team at Oxon Epidemiology and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed medical records from 2 million people aged 55 on average, for up to two decades. Their most conservative analysis showed underweight people had a 39% greater risk of dementia compared with being a normal healthy weight. But those who were overweight had an 18% reduction in dementia, and the figure was 24% reduction for the obese. Any explanation for the protective effect is distinctly lacking. There are some ideas that vitamin D and E deficiencies contribute to dementia and they may be less common in those eating more. Be it any way, let's still not forget that heart disease, stroke, diabetes, some cancers and other diseases are all linked to a bigger waistline. Maybe being slightly overweight is the optimum to strike, if the recent study is to be followed.

Comments

Easy explanation

[jawtheshark]

Easy explanation: They die before they develop dementia...

Re:Easy explanation

[ShanghaiBill]

Easy explanation: They die before they develop dementia...

Another easy explanation is that the causation goes the other way: People with dementia are less likely to gain weight. There could be many reasons they eat less: less cravings, less ability to prepare food, less social interaction at meals, or just forgetting to eat. They are also more likely to smoke, which reduces appetite.

Re:Easy explanation

[pepty]

Our cohort of 1958191 people from UK general practices had a median age at baseline of 55 years (IQR 45–66) and a median follow-up of 91 years (IQR 63–126). Dementia occurred in 45507 people, at a rate of 24 cases per 1000 person-years. Compared with people of a healthy weight, underweight people (BMI 40 kg/m2) having a 29% lower (95% CI 22–36) dementia risk than people of a healthy weight. These patterns persisted throughout two decades of follow-up, after adjustment for potential confounders and allowance for the J-shape association of BMI with mortality.

Re: mode of death

[pepty]

but I bet it isn't that bad on the inside.

Except that for many people they are very aware of what's happening and what they are losing. They are intensely angry and frustrated when they lose the ability to verbalize all (or part) of what they are thinking and then it gets worse when they can no longer hold onto the complete thought. Plus as they lose executive function it is harder to control that anger and frustration. Sure, some folks have a stroke and seem to enter a second childhood, but for many it's a living hell of isolation from everyone you know - including yourself.

Re: mode of death

[Ol Olsoc]

I've got to disagree with you there chief. Dementia and Alzheimer's might seem terrible from the outside, but I bet it isn't that bad on the inside.

You need to visit a nursing home some time. Where my mother in law was housed had lots of dementia patients. A lot of them cried all the time, some were angry - in at least one case, the fellow was violent, and they eventually had to send him to a more restrictive facility. Anyhow my mother in law was a crier, I can't imagine anyone spending time around her and thinking dementia isn't that bad. I knew one "happy" dementia patient.

Plus, it isn't just wandering around being a little confused. As your brain shuts down your cognitive ability, it is also bitching up your internal organs, everything gets messed up, and you die slowly, usually over around ten years.

Cancer on the other hand is pretty terrible. Diabetes isn't a cake walk either. And all four of those conditions can kill you decades before a neurodegenerative disease is likely to strike.

My father died of cancer. He had the benefit of pain killers, and it was fairly quick. And he had his mind. We had intelligent conversations up to the evening he died.

I'd much rather die at 90 from Alzheimer's than at 40 from a heart attack.

Perhaps if you see a few family members take ten years or so to die, spending every waking moment crying, or some times having to be restrained because they are violent toward other patients, or all calm on haldol because otherwise they spend their days screaming at the bats flying around in the room, you might willingly trade ten years of life for a happier ending.

The worst thing is that we even try to extend their lives as their internal organs are going haywire, they are on drugs to keep themselves and other patients safe.

I long ago decided that if there is a hell, it resembles nothing as much as a dementia ward.

My wife says ...

[PPH]

... women who put on some extra weight tend to live longer than the men who point it out.