Higher body mass index (BMI) puts additional burden on the brain and may exacerbate Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study carried out by researchers at the University of Sheffield.

The multimodal neuroimaging study revealed obesity may contribute toward neural tissue vulnerability.

The findings published in The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease Reports, suggested that being overweight in mid-life could have a spiral-down effect on the brain’s health in older age.

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“Prevention plays an important role in the fight against the disease. It is important to stress this study does not show that obesity causes Alzheimer’s, but what it does show is that being overweight is an additional burden on brain health and it may exacerbate the disease,” lead author of the study, Professor Annalena Venneri, from the University of Sheffield’s Neuroscience Institute and NIHR Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre, said.

She added: “The diseases that cause dementia such as Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia lurk in the background for many years; so waiting until your 60s to lose weight is too late. We need to start thinking about brain health and preventing these diseases much earlier. Educating children and adolescents of this issue is vital.”

For the study, researchers from the University of Sheffield and University of Eastern Finland examined MRI brain scans of 47 patients clinically diagnosed with mild Alzheimer’s disease dementia, 68 patients with mild cognitive impairment, and 57 cognitively healthy individuals.

The novel study used three complementary, computational techniques to look at the anatomy of the brain, blood flow, and fibres of the brain.

They then compared multiple brain images and measured the differences in local concentrations of brain tissues to assess grey matter volume — which degenerates during the onset of Alzheimer’s — white matter integrity, cerebral blood flow, and obesity.

In patients with mild dementia, a positive association was found between obesity and grey matter volume around the right temporoparietal junction. This suggests obesity might contribute to neural vulnerability in cognitively healthy individuals and those with mild cognitive impairment.

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The study also found that maintaining a healthy weight in mild Alzheimer’s disease dementia could help preserve the brain structure in the presence of age and disease-related weight loss.

“Weight-loss is commonly one of the first symptoms in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease as people forget to eat or begin to snack on easy-to-grab foods like biscuits or crisps, in place of more nutritional meals,” joint author of the study, Dr Matteo De Marco, from the University of Sheffield’s Neuroscience Institute, said.

“We found that maintaining a healthy weight could help preserve brain structure in people who are already experiencing mild Alzheimer’s disease dementia,” Marco added.

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