Higher body mass index (BMI) linked to lower blood supply to the brain in large neuroimaging study

Fig­ure 6 from the study, show­ing 3‑D ren­der­ings of cere­bral per­fu­sion aver­aged across nor­mal BMI (23), over­weight (29), and obese (37) 40-year-old men

Body weight has sur­pris­ing, alarm­ing impact on brain func­tion (Sci­ence Daily):

As a per­son­’s weight goes up, all regions of the brain go down in activ­i­ty and blood flow, accord­ing to a new brain imag­ing study in the Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease … sci­en­tists ana­lyzed over 35,000 func­tion­al neu­roimag­ing scans using sin­gle-pho­ton emis­sion com­put­er­ized tomog­ra­phy (SPECT) from more than 17,000 indi­vid­u­als to mea­sure blood flow and brain activity.

Com­ment­ing on this study, George Per­ry, PhD, Edi­tor-in-Chief of the Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and Semmes Foun­da­tion Dis­tin­guished Uni­ver­si­ty Chair in Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at San Anto­nio, stat­ed, “Accep­tance that Alzheimer’s dis­ease is a lifestyle dis­ease, lit­tle dif­fer­ent from oth­er age-relat­ed dis­eases, that is the sum of a life­time is the most impor­tant break­through of the decade. Dr. Amen and col­lab­o­ra­tors pro­vide com­pelling evi­dence that obe­si­ty alters blood sup­ply to the brain to shrink the brain and pro­mote Alzheimer’s dis­ease. This is a major advance because it direct­ly demon­strates how the brain responds to our body.”

The Study:

Pat­terns of Region­al Cere­bral Blood Flow as a Func­tion of Obe­si­ty in Adults (Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease). From the abstract:

• Back­ground: While obe­si­ty has been shown to be a risk fac­tor for Alzheimer’s dis­ease, the poten­tial mech­a­nisms under­ly­ing this risk may be clar­i­fied with bet­ter under­stand­ing of under­ly­ing phys­i­ol­o­gy in obese persons.
• Objec­tive: To iden­ti­fy pat­terns of cere­bral per­fu­sion abnor­mal­i­ty in adults as a func­tion of body mass index (BMI) defined weight cat­e­gories, includ­ing over­weight or obese status.
• Results: Across adult­hood, high­er BMI cor­re­lat­ed with decreased per­fu­sion on both rest­ing and con­cen­tra­tion brain SPECT scans. These are seen in vir­tu­al­ly all brain regions, includ­ing those influ­enced by AD pathol­o­gy such as the hippocampus.
• Con­clu­sion: Greater BMI is asso­ci­at­ed with cere­bral per­fu­sion decreas­es in both rest­ing and con­cen­tra­tion SPECT scans across adulthood.

News in Context:

• Sys­tem­at­ic review finds ten lifestyle fac­tors that clear­ly impact the prob­a­bil­i­ty of devel­op­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD)
• Can you grow your hip­pocam­pus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
• What are Cog­ni­tive Abil­i­ties and Skills, and How to Boost Them?
• Reminder: A brain-friend­ly lifestyle is the best approach to delay cog­ni­tive decline and dementia
• Cog­ni­tive train­ing, diet, exer­cise, and vas­cu­lar man­age­ment seen to improve cog­ni­tion even in peo­ple with genet­ic pre­dis­po­si­tion for demen­tia (APOE e4)