Belly Fat And Dementia
Recent medical research is suggesting that if you carry excess weight on your body, it’s the actual location of the extra fat that is most important. Most evidence suggests that “belly fat” (as opposed to hip, buttock, and thigh fat) is the worst kind. Fortunately, there are things you can do to cut your risks.
“Belly fat” is otherwise known as “visceral fat”, which means it is located deep in your abdomen, wrapped around your internal (visceral) organs, rather than just below the skin. Doctors describe people with belly or visceral fat as being “apple shaped” (versus those with hip fat, which gives a “pear shaped” appearance). It seems that the deep visceral belly fat—wrapped around our vital organs (not an appetizing thought in itself)— secretes toxic substances that especially leads to inflammation, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular mortality.
And now we have strong evidence that people in their 40s who carry excess visceral fat are much more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease when they are in their 70s.
Researchers in California in the 1960s and 70s began studying a group of more than 6000 people, measuring their abdominal girth to see what would happen to them over many years. This long-term study found that even people who were otherwise normal weight but had big bellies were 89% more likely than flat bellied people to eventually become senile from Alzheimer’s and all other causes. And those both overweight and with a big belly had a dementia risk over 200% greater than normal-weight people. Obese people (heavier than just “overweight”) had a risk factor of more than 300% (check this link for a great graphic and more details).
The mechanism for this belly fat-dementia risk is not known. It’s possible that the fat itself is not causing the dementia, but that some other mechanism is working that brings about both a big belly and dementia at the same time…but there is a good chance that if you do have a big belly, if you somehow fix your belly situation, you may well decrease your chances for dementia as you get older. This might be particularly important for people with a family history for dementia. You can’t change your family history, but you can fix a big belly.
Next post I’ll cover one possible remedy for the belly fat problem, and I can tell you now: it’s not liposuction…
