Being ‘skinny fat’ raises the risk of Alzheimer’s even MORE than typical obesity, small study suggests

Being ‘skinny fat’ increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease – perhaps even more than apparently obese people, research suggests.

A small study of 56 middle-aged people found that people with higher levels of visceral fat – the type that wraps around abdominal organs deep within the body – had more danger proteins in their brains linked to dementia than their counterparts who had more had weak fat, the so-called subcutaneous fat.

Visceral fat is known as ‘skinny fat’ because it is not visible from the outside, meaning that even people with a healthy BMI can have a significant amount of visceral fat.

But it can release chemicals and hormones into the blood that cause inflammation, which in turn causes inflammation in the brain, which is one of the main causes of Alzheimer’s disease.

Study author Dr. Mahsa Dolatshahi, a postdoctoral researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, said: ‘Although there have been other studies linking BMI to brain atrophy or even a higher risk of dementia, no previous study has identified a specific type of dementia in associated. fat to the actual protein of Alzheimer’s disease in cognitively normal people.’

Researchers looked at data from 54 cognitively healthy participants aged 40-60 with an average BMI of 32.

A BMI over 30 is categorized as obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The volume of subcutaneous fat and visceral fat was measured once using an MRI.

Subcutaneous fat is the wobbly type of fat that lies just under the skin and causes cellulite to develop.

This type of fat is actually the least harmful and tends to accumulate around the thighs and buttocks rather than around the intestines, creating a pear-shaped body.

Unlike visceral fat, subcutaneous fat does not release chemicals and forms the layer between the skin and the muscles.

An MRI of the participants’ brains also measured the thickness of the cortex, the layer of the brain responsible for speech, long-term memory, perception and judgment. As Alzheimer’s disease worsens, this layer becomes thinner.

At the same time, PET scans were also used in a subset of participants to see if amyloid and tau proteins were at higher levels.

A positron emission tomography (PET) scan is used to check for signs of brain disease, as well as heart disease and cancer.

Amyloid and tau are proteins that are thought to disrupt communication between brain cells and are important markers of Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers compared the fat measurements and the brain scans and found that participants with more visceral fat had more amyloid in their brains, indicating they may be at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease. The relationship was worse among men than among women.

Researchers found that this fat is linked to changes in participants’ brains as early as age 50 – up to 15 years before the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s memory loss.

The researchers plan to follow the study participants to monitor the long-term effects of visceral fat, as the earliest development of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain can occur up to 20 years before the first symptoms.

Senior study author Dr. Cyrus Raji, associate professor of radiology and neurology, said the findings could help earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and possible treatments.

He said: ‘It shows that on average, such brain changes occur as early as the age of 50 – up to 15 years before the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s memory loss appear.’

The study was presented at the annual meeting of the Radiology Society of North America.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, more than six million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, which is expected to rise to 13 million by 2050.