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Neurodegenerative disease

Balancing BMI—rethinking the relationships between obesity, ageing and risk of dementia

Nature Reviews Endocrinology volume 11, page 315 (2015)Cite this article

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A new large retrospective cohort study, published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, has revealed a surprising association between being underweight in mid-life and late-life, and increased risk of dementia. These findings seem to be in stark contrast with the widely accepted hypothesis that being overweight or having obesity is linked to dementia later in life.

The researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, initially assessed data from published studies that were identified in a large systematic analysis. However, on the basis of these reports having only small numbers of participants and few events, as well as a lack of information for some confounders, such as smoking and blood pressure, they concluded that much of the data from these studies were unreliable.

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References

  1. Qizilbash, N. et al. BMI and risk of dementia in two million people over two decades: a retrospective cohort study. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 10.1016/S2213-8587(15)00085-6

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  1. Jennifer Sargent
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Sargent, J. Balancing BMI—rethinking the relationships between obesity, ageing and risk of dementia. Nat Rev Endocrinol 11, 315 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrendo.2015.67

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