Obesity and Brain Power in middle age

Puzzle and Brain Games

April 15th, 2007 |

If you are overweight, here’s some additional incentive to lose the pounds from a recent study in the journal Neurology that suggests there is a connection between obesity and brain power amongst the middle aged.

2223 healthy men and women between the ages of 32 and 62 were studied. Those who were overweight (as judged by a body mass index (BMI) greater than 25) performed worse on cognitive tests that measured learning and memory ability.

Interestingly, these findings held up even when the cognitive test scores were adjusted for high blood pressure and diabetes (both brain busters tend to be more common in those who are obese).

Earlier smartkit posts discuss how:

children who are obese by age 4 are more likely to have lower IQ scores (25-30 points)
the appetite control hormone leptin has recently been found to have an important role in learning and memory.

[Click here to jump to the abstract for the above 'obesity and brain power' study in the journal Neurology 2006;67:1208-1214]

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Filed under: Brain, Brain Busters, Brain Food, Brain Power, Memory Loss, Smartkit All Posts Post tags: obesity

2 Responses to “Obesity and Brain Power in middle age”

Mark W | Guest July 19th, 2007 - 4:30 pm

I’m way late on commenting here, but I thought I’d point something out. This study measures correlation between obesity and learning/memory, but not causation. So it doesn’t indicate that losing weight can increase peoples cognitive abilities.
kerry | Profile (beta) December 7th, 2007 - 11:32 pm

thanks for the great information about diabetes. one thing I would recommend is for every one to go get this movie called SUPER SIZE ME! it’s a movie that’s a couple years old now, but it’s certainly drives home the point of how obesity can affect our health overall. And as the result, diseases such as diabetes is the result of all this fast food, no exercise lifestyle that we have chosen. just wanted to throw in my two cents worth….