Men lose their memory 10 years earlier than women… but only if they suffer from a common health problem
Research shows that men can lose their memory ten years earlier than women if they are obese.
Dementia affects millions of people around the world, slowly robbing them of their memories and independence, with people over the age of 75 more likely to be affected.
But a team from Imperial College London found that obesity can cause men in particular to develop the memory-robbing disorder years earlier.
Researchers studied 34,000 adults in the UK Biobank aged 45 to 82 with obesity, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes – all risk factors for dementia.
They found that in overweight men, brain volume and function began to decline between the ages of 55 and 74, while overweight women were most susceptible between the ages of 65 and 74 – ten years later than men.
Adults with heart disease or obesity are more likely to develop dementia. Researchers say this is because it can cause inflammation and poor blood flow to the brain and lead to cognitive decline.
The new one studypublished in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, is the first to show how poor cardiovascular health affects the brains of different sexes at different ages.
In the study, researchers recorded the volume and weight of the participants’ brains using scans and also measured the volume of their abdominal fat.
From these scans, researchers were able to assess the influence of cardiovascular risk and fat on brain neurodegeneration – the progressive loss of neurons in the brain, which can cause dementia.
Researchers found that in overweight men, brain volume and function began to decline between the ages of 55 and 74, while overweight women were most susceptible between the ages of 65 and 74 – a decade later.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. The disease can cause anxiety, confusion and short-term memory loss
Researchers found that higher levels of abdominal fat were associated with smaller brain volume, which is a loss of brain cells and connections between cells.
This is important because research shows that people with dementia have a smaller brain volume.
However, this relationship between abdominal fat and smaller brain volume was stronger in men than in women.
Professor Paul Edison from Imperial’s Department of Brain Sciences, who led the study, urged doctors to intervene early to help prevent dementia and specifically target cardiovascular risk and obesity in men decades earlier.
Researchers suggested that weight-loss jabs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro could be ‘repurposed’ to treat Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.
There are currently an estimated 982,000 people with dementia in Britain. This number is expected to rise to 1.4 million by 2040.
An estimated 6.7 million Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s disease today. This number could grow to 13.8 million by 2060.
But according to the NHS, around 40 per cent of dementia cases are thought to be preventable.
Experts say lifestyle changes such as losing weight, exercising more or quitting smoking can prevent the condition.