Obesity Correlates With Faster Mental Decline
Here is another of many studies to link being overweight with cognitive decline: "People who are obese and suffer from high blood pressure and other problems linked to heart disease and diabetes may also see a faster decline in their mental abilities, according to a new study ... Yet even obese people without these physical conditions experienced a faster decline in functions such as memory, the researchers noted. This finding belies the concept of being obese and healthy ... Participants came from the long-running Whitehall II study, which began in 1985 and follows British civil servants from middle age onward. For the new findings, researchers followed more than 6,400 people aged 39 to 63 for 10 years. At the start of the study, they recorded patients' risk factors, including weight. During the follow-up decade, participants also took tests on memory, reasoning and overall mental function at three intervals. People with metabolic syndrome who were also obese saw a more rapid decline - 22.5 percent faster - in their mental function than those who weren't obese and didn't suffer from the syndrome. Moreover, those who did not have metabolic syndrome but were obese also saw mental function decline more quickly than participants who were not obese."