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Food and Health Fact #161
Fact #161: The Alzheimer's-obesity nexus
By Matthew Rees
Food and Health Fact #161: The Alzheimer's-obesity nexus
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Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States and women account for nearly two-thirds of all Alzheimer’s diagnoses. It affects about 5.8 million people and in 2019 it was responsible for more than 121,000 deaths. There is no known cure, but there are “modifiable risk factors,” which is a perfumed way of saying “preventive measures.”
A study published in JAMA Neurology earlier this week identifies eight risk factors that are associated with 37 percent of cases of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. The study’s three authors – professors at UCLA and UC San Francisco – found that the biggest such risk factor, by a large margin, is midlife obesity, followed by physical activity and low education. (When a similar study was published in 2011, obesity was not one of the three leading risk factors.)
In an interview with MedPage Today, one of the study’s authors said, “the growing number of people who are obese in the U.S. could have a major long-term impact on dementia rates."
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