Having a pot belly makes you nearly FOUR times more likely to suffer from memory loss
- - People with lots of abdominal fat have lower levels of a protein called PPARalpha in their
brains and livers - increasing the risk of memory loss - - This is because the protein controls memory and learning
- - The finding could lead to the development of injections to treat dementia
By EMMA INNES
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People who carry a lot of fat around their middles are three and a half times more likely to develop memory loss and dementia in old age, research shows.
Scientists have found that people with a lot of abdominal fat have lower levels of the protein that also controls how the liver metabolises fat.
Called PPARalpha, it controls fat metabolism in the liver, but it also resides in the brain’s memory centre – the hippocampus – and controls memory and learning.
People who carry a lot of fat around their middles are three and a half times more likely to develop memory loss and dementia in old age
When people are overweight, they initially just have depleted PPARalpha levels in their livers but eventually in their whole bodies, including their brains.
Neurological scientists at the Rush University Medical Centre, in Chicago, in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health, believe their finding could lead to the development of an injection to improve learning and memory in people with dementia.
Dr Kalipada Pahan from Rush University Medical Centre said: ‘We need to better understand how fat is connected to memory and learning so that we can develop effective approach to protect memory and learning.
‘While PPARalpha deficient mice are poor in learning and memory, injection of PPARĪ± to the hippocampus improves learning and memory.’
Dr Pahan said: ‘Further research must be conducted to see how we could potentially maintain normal PPARalpha in the brain in order to be resistant to memory loss.’
Researchers found people with a lot of abdominal fat have lower levels of the nuclear regulator PPARalpha in their livers and brains making them 3.6 times more likely to develop dementia
The research was published in the journal Cell Reports.
Previous research has suggested that passive smoking, sleep apnoea, drinking and taking drugs, type 2 diabetes and heart disease can all also increase a person's risk of dementia.
Dementia currently affects about 800,000 people in the UK.
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