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Brains of Overweight People Look Ten Years Older Than Those of Lean Peers, Says Report (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The brains of people who are obese or overweight appear to have aged an extra 10 years compared to their lean peers from middle age onwards, brain scanning research has revealed. The difference, scientists say, corresponds to a greater shrinkage in the volume of white matter, although they don't know the cause. It might be down to genes causing both brain-shrinking and obesity, or it could be that changes occurring in the brain lead to overeating. Either way, it does not appear to affect cognitive performance. White matter is tissue, composed of nerve fibers, that aids communication between different regions of the brain. The volume of white matter in a human brain increases during youth and then decreases with age for both lean people and those who are overweight or obese. But researchers have discovered that this shrinkage differs depending on a subject's BMI. "The overall message is that brains basically appear to be 10 years older if you are overweight or obese," said Lisa Ronan, first author of the study from the University of Cambridge. Despite a higher BMI being linked to a smaller volume of white matter, it did not appear to have any link to mental prowess, with no difference seen between lean and overweight or obese participants when they were subjected to IQ tests. Scientists from the University of Cambridge and Yale University have published their findings in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.
Your claim of lower cognitive performance due to diet choices is not related to the premature aging the scientists found.
My guess is that the brain matter loss has more to do with the sedentary life style which often goes along with obesity. Lack of exercise, watching too much TV, etc.
From The Guardian:
Underweight people face significantly higher risk of dementia, study suggests
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/10/underweight-people-face-significantly-higher-risk-of-dementia-study-suggests
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Research involving health records of 2 million people condradicts current thinking, sparking surprise among authors and health experts
It has been wrongly claimed that obese people have a higher risk of dementia, say the authors from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Here's the consensus: Burn more calories than you consume and you will lose weight, and try to eat some vegetables every once in a while to ensure you get some vitamins. That's about it.
Even this is a little bullshit. I lost 100 pounds last year and I had similar experiences to yours. My weight has now been stable for about eight months. This year, I suffered an injury which changed my routine, causing me to burn about 7000 fewer calories per week than my pre-injury routine (I was completely bedridden). With my reduced calorie burn and no significant changes in intake, I lost about five pounds in a few weeks. Here I am six weeks later, and the weight loss was real and permanent. This weight loss completely baffles me and can't be explained by my mental model of weight management.
No one should be overreacting on this subject. On TFA, the researcher already stated that weight may not really be the cause (just a possibility and may need further research)
If there's a correlation it could be the other way around: perhaps people with those specific brain characteristics are prone to eating more.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.