Bigger Bellies Buy the Farm

In my (feeble) attempts to write a pithy, alliterative headline, I used “buy the farm”. Most of you know that this is another way of saying “die”. It may not be funny, but the headline is true. What the doctors call “central obesity” is not only a killer, but also a risk factor for dementia.

Previous studies have shown that central obesity is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, or heart failure) and type 2 diabetes (itself a warning of earlier death). But, in case that wasn’t enough, the news that bigger bellies are a signpost to dementia has caused some consternation among many.

Kaiser Permanente researchers, writing in the journal Neurology, report the results of an analysis that followed 6,500 people over a period of 36 years (1964 to 2006). Waist size at enrollment was recorded.

Over 1,000 of the participants (16%) were diagnosed with dementia during the study. Compared with the 20% of the participants who had the smallest waist size, those 20% with the greatest waist size were 2.7 times as likely to have developed dementia. This association was independent of the presence of diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, high blood lipids, or heart disease.