Obesity threatens older people with dementia

LONDON (Reuters) – Healthy older people who have been obese for years may increase their risk of dementia compared to those who are not, British researchers said Wednesday. The team studied two groups of dementia-free adults aged 65 to 74, aged over 15 years old.

The first group included 257,523 patients considered healthy, did not smoke, did not have cancer, had a heart attack or chronic health problems, while the second group included 161,927 adults considered to be in poor health and smoking. or suffering from serious and chronic health problems.

During the first 10 years of study, healthy people with obesity or weight gain were less likely than normal weight healthy people, but obesity was then associated to a 17% increase in the risk of dementia.

"When we look at the long-term situation, obesity is clearly linked to an increased risk of dementia," said David Melzer, head of the research team at Exeter University in Great Britain. Britain.

Previous research has shown that obese people generally suffer from other health problems, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, factors that alone can increase the risk of dementia. But the findings on the link between obesity and dementia were so uneven that previous studies had found that being overweight could be a protective factor.

According to Melzer, losing weight before the diagnosis of dementia could blur the link between obesity and cognitive impairment and noted that Alzheimer's disease, the leading cause of dementia, could develop slowly more than 20 years before diagnosis.