New Findings: Maintaining the Right Weight Reduces the Risk of Alzheimer's Disease!

A large-scale longitudinal cohort study conducted by Chinese scholars found that obesity over the whole life course is associated with the risk of new-onset Alzheimer's disease, that is, low birth weight, and too thin or obese body size in childhood and adulthood will significantly increase the risk of
Alzheimer's disease.
Their research provides more specific life practice guidance
for preventing Alzheimer's disease.
Professor Yu Jintai, a neurologist at Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, advocated that weight control should start from a small age, and maintaining an appropriate weight can reduce the risk of
many chronic diseases in the future, including Alzheimer's disease.

It is reported that the indicators that evaluate obesity throughout the life course include birth weight, childhood BMI (body mass index), adult BMI, body fat rate, etc
.
The optimal adult BMI is 29.
2 kg/m2 for men and 28.
5 kg/m2
for women.

The large-scale longitudinal cohort study of 322,336 people further reveals the underlying mechanism: obesity can increase the risk
of Alzheimer's disease by affecting metabolism, inflammation, and brain structure.
The clinical research team of Professor Yu Jintai and the research team of Professor Feng Jianfeng/Professor Cheng Wei of the Institute of Brain-like Intelligence of Fudan University systematically studied the relationship between obesity and Alzheimer's disease over the whole life course, and explored the potential mechanism from three aspects: metabolism, inflammation and brain structure, confirming that weight control can prevent Alzheimer's disease and needs to run through the whole life cycle
.
The latest issue of the international academic journal Molecular Psychiatry published the results
.

Introduction, many previous studies have shown that obesity is associated with an increased risk of more than ten types of cancer, and obese people are more likely to suffer from metabolic diseases and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases; Obesity in older adults is also considered a risk factor for
Alzheimer's disease.
However, there are currently no large-scale cohort studies that systematically explore the relationship between
obesity and dementia risk over the whole life course.

To clarify this question, the joint research team used the UK biobank cohort to include more than 320,000 non-dementia people aged 50 to 73 years to conduct the study, with an average follow-up time of 8.
74 years
.
The study found that the risk of dementia with very low birth weight (< 1.
0 kg) increased by 1.
18 times compared with normal birth weight, and the risk of dementia increased by 18%
in fatter childhood body types compared with average childhood body size.
The study found a U-shaped relationship between adult BMI and dementia risk, with a 6% (male) and 5% (female) risk for every 1 kg/m2 increase (equivalent to 3 kg of weight gain in a person with an average height of 173 cm)
when BMI was below the recommended value.
When BMI is higher than recommended, the risk of dementia increases by 3% (males) and 2% (females)
for every 1 kg/m2 increase.

Regarding the mechanism of obesity and Alzheimer's disease, the research team used the participants' biological samples and brain image data to conduct an in-depth study
of the possible mechanism of obesity affecting the occurrence of dementia.
The research team also comprehensively explored the relationship between
obesity and brain structure.
Many indicators of obesity are strongly associated
with dementia-related brain regions such as the bilateral middle temporal lobe, prefrontal lobe, hippocampus, and amygdala.