People with obesity\u00a0and high blood pressure\u00a0may face a\u00a0higher\u00a0risk of dementia,\u00a0according to a new study published in\u00a0The Journal of\u00a0Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.<\/p>\n
Dementia is a growing global public health challenge, with no cure currently available. People with dementia\u00a0experience\u00a0a severe decline in mental abilities, like memory,\u00a0thinking\u00a0and reasoning.<\/p>\n
The most common forms of dementia are\u00a0Alzheimer’s\u00a0disease, vascular\u00a0dementia\u00a0and mixed\u00a0dementia.\u00a0Dementia\u00a0is\u00a0a progressive brain disease that\u00a0causes\u00a0nerve cell damage that worsens over time, affecting memory, language, problem-solving\u00a0and behavior.<\/p>\n
“In this study, we\u00a0found high\u00a0body mass index (BMI)\u00a0and high blood pressure are direct causes of dementia,” said study author Ruth Frikke-Schmidt,\u00a0M.D., Ph.D.,\u00a0Professor and Chief Physician\u00a0at\u00a0Copenhagen University Hospital\u00a0– Rigshospitalet\u00a0and the University of\u00a0Copenhagen\u00a0in Copenhagen, Denmark.\u00a0“The treatment and prevention of elevated\u00a0BMI and high blood pressure represent an unexploited opportunity for dementia prevention.”<\/p>\n
The researchers analyzed data from participants in Copenhagen and the U.K. and\u00a0identified\u00a0a causal link between higher body weight and dementia.<\/p>\n
The researchers\u00a0were able to\u00a0establish\u00a0a direct causal\u00a0link between high BMI and dementia\u00a0because\u00a0they used\u00a0a so-called Mendelian randomization\u00a0design\u00a0that mimics a randomized controlled trial. In the Mendelian randomization study design,\u00a0common\u00a0genetic variants causing high BMI\u00a0are\u00a0used as\u00a0proxies\u00a0for BMI altering medications. As active drug versus placebo is randomly assigned due to the randomization process in drug trials, and as BMI-increasing\u00a0genetic variants versus neutral variants are randomly assorted from parents to offspring, the effects on the disease endpoint will be clear and not affected by confounding factors.<\/p>\n
Therefore, this\u00a0strategy enabled\u00a0the researchers\u00a0to\u00a0establish\u00a0a direct causal\u00a0link\u00a0between high BMI and risk of dementia.<\/p>\n
Much of this increased dementia risk appeared\u00a0to be driven by high blood pressure, suggesting that preventing or treating obesity and high blood pressure could help reduce dementia risk.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This study shows that high body weight and high blood pressure are not just warning signs, but direct causes of dementia. That makes them highly actionable targets for prevention.”<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Ruth Frikke-Schmidt,\u00a0Copenhagen University Hospital<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Weight-loss medication has recently been tested for halting cognitive decline in early phases of Alzheimer’s disease, but with no beneficial effect. An open question that remains to be tested is\u00a0if\u00a0weight-loss\u00a0medication\u00a0initiated\u00a0before the appearance of cognitive symptoms may be protective against dementia. Our present data would suggest that early weight-loss interventions would prevent dementia, and especially vascular-related\u00a0dementia,”\u00a0she\u00a0continued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People with obesity\u00a0and high blood pressure\u00a0may face a\u00a0higher\u00a0risk of dementia,\u00a0according to a new study published in\u00a0The Journal of\u00a0Clinical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,1728,7548,6640,1362,226332,1618,9757,49451,27392,3968,137,10148,19804,4082,1366,4389,11749,4390,14264,1836,337,40847],"class_list":["post-432632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blood","tag-blood-pressure","tag-body-mass-index","tag-brain","tag-brain-disease","tag-cell","tag-dementia","tag-endocrine","tag-endocrinology","tag-genetic","tag-health","tag-high-blood-pressure","tag-hormone","tag-hospital","tag-language","tag-metabolism","tag-nerve","tag-obesity","tag-ph","tag-public-health","tag-research","tag-vascular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}