Obesity Linked To The Reduction Of White Matter In Middle-Aged Brains

A new study reveals that being overweight ages your brain by 10 years compared to that of the leaner person with the same age. The researchers discovered that there is a reduction of white matter (the part that transmits information) for those who are overweight.

The study was printed in the journal Neurobiology of Aging. It was led by researchers from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience, according to Tech Times.

The study involved 473 people between the ages of 20 to 87. The team examined them and divided them into two categories namely the lean and the overweight. The results showed that overweight people had less white matter in their brains compared with the lean persons. It indicates that a 50-year-old overweight had a brain scan similar to that of a lean person aged 60.On the other hand, the difference can only be seen with the middle-aged.

Professor Paul Fletcher, the senior author of the study explained that the fact that they only saw these differences from middle-age onwards raises the possibility that they may be particularly vulnerable at this age. He further explained that you are living in an aging population, with increasing levels of obesity. It is essential then that you establish how these two factors might interact since the consequences for health are potentially serious, as noted by NY Daily News.

Dr. Lisa Ronan of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge said that as the brains age, they naturally shrink in size, but it isn't clear why people who are overweight have a greater reduction in the amount of white matter. She further said that they can only speculate on whether obesity might in some way cause these changes or whether obesity is a consequence of brain changes. On the other hand, even though there are differences between obese and lean individuals, there are no associations of an overweight individual's intelligence or cognitive functions.