Early dementia: another reason to lose extra weight

Obesity is associated with memory problems in older people. Is the true for younger people also indicating risk for early dementia? This was answered by Dr. Gunstad and colleagues from Brown Medical School in Providence, RI. They published their findings recently in the journal Eat Weight Disorders (March 2006).

These investigators studied 486 healthy persons. They were divided into normal weight, overweight, and obese groups. All the subjects were subjected them to a verbal list-learning task. 

These authors found that obese subjects performed poorly on memory as compared to their age-matched leaner counterparts. The analysis demonstrated that there is an independent relationship between obesity and memory and that the relationship between BMI and memory does not vary with age.

These findings suggest that extra-weight during middle age may result in a higher risk of dementia later in life.