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Longitudinal Changes in Fat Mass and the Hippocampus.
Ananthan Ambikairajah1, Hossein Tabatabaei-Jafari1, Erin Walsh1
1Centre for Research on Ageing, Health and Wellbeing, Research School of Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.)
|May 20, 2020
Summary
Maintaining overweight or obesity, even temporarily, is linked to reduced hippocampal volume. These findings suggest lasting negative effects of excess body fat on brain structure, impacting memory and cognition.
Area of Science:
- Neuroimaging
- Obesity research
- Brain health
Background:
- Excess body fat, measured by body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WTHR), is associated with various health issues.
- The impact of fat mass on brain structure, particularly hippocampal volume, is an area of ongoing investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the relationship between different measures of fat mass and hippocampal volumes.
- To investigate both cross-sectional and longitudinal associations over a mean follow-up of 7.66 years.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from 20,395 UK Biobank participants aged 40-70 years.
- Categorized participants into four groups based on baseline fat mass and changes over time: normal weight to overweight/obesity, overweight/obesity to normal weight (ON), normal weight stable (NS), and overweight/obesity stable (OS).
- Employed regression models with NS as the reference group and automatically segmented hippocampal volumes using FMRIB Software Library.
Main Results:
- Participants in the overweight/obesity stable (OS) and overweight/obesity to normal weight (ON) groups exhibited significantly lower hippocampal volumes compared to the normal weight stable (NS) group.
- Specific reductions were noted for BMI, WC, and WTHR in both OS and ON groups.
Conclusions:
- Overweight and obesity are associated with reduced hippocampal volumes.
- The detrimental effects of excess fat mass on the brain may persist even after weight loss or extend beyond the period of being overweight/obese.
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