Alzheimer's, Dementia & Mental Health
Obese Older Women With Pear Shapes Have Most Memory,
Cognitive Problems
Apple-Shaped obese women have problems, too, says
first study to link obesity and body shape to poorer brain function in
older women
July 14, 2010 - The more a senior woman weighs, the
worse her memory, according to new research from Northwestern Medicine.
The effect is more pronounced in women who carry excess weight around
their hips, known as pear shapes, than women who carry it around their
waists, called apple shapes.
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The study of 8,745 cognitively normal,
post-menopausal women ages 65 to 79 from the Women's Health Initiative
hormone trials is the first in the United States to link obesity to
poorer memory and brain function in women and to identify the body-shape
connection.
"The message is obesity and a higher Body Mass
Index (BMI) are not good for your cognition and your memory," said lead
author Diana Kerwin, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine and a
physician at Northwestern Medicine. "While the women's scores were still
in the normal range, the added weight definitely had a detrimental
effect."
For every one-point increase in a woman's BMI, her
memory score dropped by one point. The women were scored on a 100-point
memory test, called the Modified Mini-Mental Status Examination. The
study controlled for such variables as diabetes, heart disease and
stroke.
The study will be published July 14 in the
Journal of the American Geriatric Society.
The reason pear-shaped women experienced more
memory and brain function deterioration than apple-shaped women is
likely related to the type of fat deposited around the hips versus the
waist.
"Obesity is bad, but its effects are worse
depending on where the fat is located," Kerwin said.
Cytokines, hormones released by the predominant
kind of fat in the body that can cause inflammation, likely affect
cognition, Kerwin said. Scientists already know different kinds of fat
release different cytokines and have different effects on insulin
resistance, lipids and blood pressure.
"We need to find out if one kind of fat is more
detrimental than the other, and how it affects brain function," she
said. "The fat may contribute to the formation of plaques associated
with Alzheimer's disease or a restricted blood flow to the brain."
In the meantime, the new findings provide guidance
to physicians with overweight, older female patients.
"The study tells us if we have a woman in our
office, and we know from her waist-to-hip ratio that she's carrying
excess fat on her hips, we might be more aggressive with weight loss,"
Kerwin said. "We can't change where your fat is located, but having less
of it is better."
Kerwin's research is funded by the T. Franklin
Williams Award from Atlantic Philanthropies and Association of Specialty
Professors and the Wisconsin Women's Health Foundation Faculty Scholar
Award. The Women's Health Initiative was funded by a grant from the
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Northwestern Medicine is comprised of Northwestern
University Feinberg School of Medicine and Northwestern Memorial
Hospital.
