Study Shows Dementia Risk Is Less Likely in People Who Are Obese

Obesity is connected to health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, liver disease, and several types of cancer. A health issue that may be of less concern to someone with obesity is dementia,
according to a new study published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

A team of researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine looked at records of almost two million patients in the U.K. Correlating BMI with dementia diagnoses, the researchers found that people who were underweight had a 35% higher risk of developing dementia than people of normal weight, and people who were very obese were 29% less likely to be diagnosed with the condition than people of normal weight. The reason is still unclear, however, researchers are hopeful they might be able to use these insights to search for protective factors and develop new treatments for dementia.