A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Sheffield has found that being overweight and obese can pose an additional burden on brain health, potentially exacerbating Alzheimer’s disease and its symptoms.
The pioneering neuroimaging study revealed that obesity may contribute to the deterioration of neural tissue, while maintaining a healthy weight, even in patients with mild Alzheimer’s, can help preserve their brain structure. The results, published in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, also highlight the impact of midlife weight gain on brain health in older adults. The study's lead author, Professor Analina Finney from the University of Sheffield’s Institute of Neuroscience and the National Institute for Health Biomedical Research Centre, stated, "It is believed that more than 50 million people live with Alzheimer’s disease, and despite decades of groundbreaking research, we still do not have a cure for this terrible disease."
She added, “Prevention plays a significant role in combating the disease, and it is important to emphasize that this study does not show that obesity causes Alzheimer’s, but what it shows is that being overweight represents an additional burden on brain health, which may also exacerbate the disease. Diseases that cause dementia, such as Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, can lie dormant for many years, so waiting until one's sixties to lose weight means it may be too late. We need to start thinking about brain health and how to prevent these diseases early in life, and educating children and teenagers about the burden that weight gain adds to multiple diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases, is vital and extremely important."
Through this study, researchers from the University of Sheffield and the University of Eastern Finland examined MRI scans of the brains of 47 clinically diagnosed patients with mild Alzheimer’s, 68 patients with mild cognitive impairment, and 57 cognitively healthy individuals. The new study employed three complementary computational techniques to analyze brain anatomy, blood flow, and examine brain fibers. Moreover, the international team compared multiple brain images and measured differences in local concentrations of brain tissues to evaluate the volume of gray matter, which deteriorates with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, and to assess the integrity of white matter and blood flow rates in the brain.
In patients with mild dementia, researchers found a positive correlation between obesity and gray matter volume around the right temporoparietal junction of the brain, indicating that obesity may contribute to neurodegeneration in both healthy individuals and those with mild cognitive impairment. This study also found that maintaining a healthy weight among patients with mild dementia and Alzheimer's disease could help preserve brain structure.
Co-author Dr. Matteo Di Marco from the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield noted, "Sudden weight loss or gain is usually one of the first symptoms that appear in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, as people forget to eat or start snacking easily and excessively, tending to choose unhealthy foods like cookies or chips." Dr. Di Marco added, "We found that maintaining a healthy weight can help preserve brain structure in individuals already suffering from mild Alzheimer’s. Unlike other diseases such as cardiovascular diseases or diabetes, people often don’t think about the importance of nutrition concerning neurological conditions, but these findings suggest that it can significantly help in preserving their brain structure."
