While there are numerous negative studies about the effects of obesity, a new study suggests that being overweight has one positive output.
Obese, middle-aged people are 30 percent less likely to be diagnosed with dementia than those that belong to the "healthy" weight range, the study claimed. In the same way, underweight persons within the same age bracket are a third more likely to experience the condition than those who are categorized under the average body mass index, the Huffington Post emphasized.
Published in the Lancet Diabetes And Endocrinology journal, this new finding contradicts with what has been believed in years that obesity could lead to a myriad of diseases, one of which is dementia.
Researchers from the Tropical Medicine and London School of Hygiene analyzed data from CPRD (Clinical Practice Research Ddatalink). The large database that represented approximately 9% of the entire United Kingdom population contains recorded information over two decades of routine general practices.
In summary, 1, 958, 191 people with an average age of 55 at the beginning of the study and a 26.5 kg/m2 BMI were examined. Results showed that within nine years, 45, 507 participants were diagnosed with severe decline in mental capacity.
The study, also, cited that persons who were underweight within the same age bracket were 34 percent more likely to experience dementia. Together with the participants' increasing BMI, dementia risk is reduced. Those with 40 kg/m2 BMI were 29 percent less likely to undergo mental degradation than those categorized under the normal weight bracket.
The association between dementia risk and BMI was not affected by the study's long period of observation.