BOSTON—Individuals who have high amounts of abdominal fat have an increased risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer disease, according to a new study published in the Annals of Neurology.
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) studied more than 700 participants from the Framingham Offspring Cohort. The participants underwent a volumetric multi-detector abdominal CT-scan with quantitative measurement of subcutaneous fat and visceral fat volume as well as a brain MRI.
“We observed an inverse association of body mass index, waist circumference, subcutaneous adipose tissue and visceral adipose tissue with total brain volume, independent of vascular risk factors,” said senior author Sudha Seshadri, MD, associate professor of neurology at BUSM and an investigator at the Framingham Heart Study. “More importantly our data suggests that the association between visceral adipose tissue and total brain volume was the strongest and most robust of all, and was also independent of body mass index and insulin resistance.”
According to the researchers, the potential mechanisms underlying the inverse association of obesity and particularly visceral abdominal fat with total brain volume are speculative. Inflammation could be an important mediator as well as diabetes and insulin resistance. In addition, the researchers believe adipose-tissue derived hormones, such as adiponectin, leptin, resistin or ghrelin, also could play a role in the relation between adipose tissue and brain atrophy.
