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| Friday, 29 April 2005 12:20 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk
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Middle aged people who are overweight or obese have an increased risk of dementia in later life, a study has found.
The British Medical Journal report found that being obese (having a body mass index of more than 30) in middle age made a person 74 per cent more likely to develop dementia in old age.
For overweight people (with a BMI of 25 to 29.9) the risk was 35 per cent greater than for those of a healthy weight (BMI between 18.6 and 24.9).
The study of more than 10,000 men and women over a thirty-year period was carried out by the US National Institute of Health.
Body mass index was shown to predict dementia most strongly among women.
Obese women were 200 per cent more likely to have dementia than women of normal weight, while obese men had only a 30 per cent increase in risk.
Ethnicity did not appear to affect the risk.
The authors predict that dementia incidence will increase five-fold in the near future due to the rising obesity levels combined with the aging population.
It was suspected that obesity might increase the risk of dementia by association with existing medical conditions already linked to dementia, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
However, results showed that the risk of dementia was increased by obesity independently of existing illnesses.
Researchers now believe that treatment of obesity in middle age could significantly reduce the risk of dementia in later life.
The study is published in the British Medical Journal.
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