Obesity on Women’s can Harms Memory And Brain Function
The effect is much more pronounced in women who carry excess weight close to their hips, known as pear shapes, than women who carry it all-around their waists, referred to as apple shapes.
The study of 8,745 cognitively regular, post-menopausal women ages 65 to 79 from the Women’s Health Initiative hormone trials could be the very first inside the United States to link obesity to poorer memory and brain function in women and to identify the body-shape connection.
For every one-point boost in a woman’s BMI, her memory score dropped by 1 stage. The women were scored on a 100-point memory test, referred to as the Modified Mini-Mental Status Examination. The study controlled for such variables as diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
The cause pear-shaped women experienced much more memory and brain function deterioration than apple-shaped women is most likely associated to the kind of fat deposited around the hips versus the waist.
“Obesity is bad but its effects are worse depending on where the fat is located,” stated lead author Diana Kerwin, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine plus a physician at Northwestern Medicine.
“Cytokines, hormones released by the predominant kind of fat in the body that can cause inflammation, likely affect cognition“, Kerwin stated. Kerwin’s research is funded through 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 in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
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