People with obesity may have a higher risk of dementia

People with obesity and high blood pressure could have a increased risk of dementiaaccording to a new study from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Dementia is a growing global public health problem, currently no cure. People with dementia experience severe impairment of mental abilities, such as memory, thinking and reasoning. The most common forms of dementia are Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and mixed dementia. Dementia is a progressive brain disease that causes damage to nerve cells that worsens over time, affecting memory, language, problem solving and behavior.

“In this study, we discovered that a high body mass index (BMI) and high blood pressure are direct causes of dementia,” emphasizes the author of the study, Dr. Ruth Frikke-Schmidtprofessor and chief medical officer of the Copenhagen University Hospital – Rigshospitalet and the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark. “Treatment and prevention of high BMI and high blood pressure represent an untapped opportunity for dementia prevention.”

The researchers analyzed data from participants in Copenhagen and the United Kingdom and identified a causal relationship between higher body weight and dementia.

Researchers were able to establish a direct causal relationship between high BMI and dementia thanks to a Mendelian randomization design which mimics a randomized controlled trial. In this design, common genetic variants that cause high BMI are used as indicators of medications that alter it.

Since the active drug versus placebo is randomly assigned due to the randomization process in clinical trials, and genetic variants that increase BMI versus neutral variants are randomly distributed from parents to children, the effects on the disease endpoint will be clear and will not be affected by confounding factors.

Therefore, this strategy allowed the researchers to establish a direct causal relationship between a high BMI and the risk of dementia. Much of this increased dementia risk appeared to be due to high blood pressure, suggesting that prevent or treat obesity and high blood pressure could help reduce the risk of dementia.

“This study shows that overweight and hypertension are not just warning signs, but direct causes of dementia,” he says. Frikke-Schmidt. “This makes them very viable prevention targets.”

“Weight-loss drugs have recently been tried to stop cognitive decline in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, but without any beneficial effect. One question that remains to be tested is whether using weight-loss drugs before the onset of cognitive symptoms could protect against dementia. “Our current data suggest that early weight loss interventions could prevent dementia, especially vascular dementia.”the authors conclude.