by TRACI WATSON
Obesity could cause shrinkage in a brain area critical to long-term memory.
More than one-third of Americans are obese, with serious consequences for heart health and, new research suggests, cognitive abilities later in life. PHOTO/Rogelio V. Solis, AP
An expanding waistline may lead to a shriveled brain, new research suggests.
In a long-term study of people in their early 60s, a brain region called the hippocampus shrank close to 2 percent a year in those who were obese—a rate approaching levels seen in Alzheimer’s disease.
In people of normal weight, the hippocampus, which is crucial for processing memories for later retrieval, shrank roughly half as much, according to an eight-year study discussed at a press conference Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C.
Earlier research on weight and the brain focused mostly on the impacts of obesity in middle-aged people, said neuroscientist and study co-author Nicolas Cherbuin of the Australian National University, in Canberra.
But participants in the new study were 60 to 64 years old when the study began, providing evidence of a link between elderly corpulence and declining cognitive powers—sobering news in nations such as the United States where the population is getting both older and fatter.
“People may think, ‘Oh, well, I’m in old age, I’m retired, it won’t matter.’ It does matter,” Cherbuin said. “The more obese one is, the more shrinkage there will be.”
National Geography for more