Stuff your belly, shrink your brain — it’s pretty simple, but it’s true.
A new study shows how the fattest people also have the smallest brains, a major risk factor for dementia. It’s like we’re eating our own brains.
See any good zombie movies lately?
Boston University School of Medicine Researchers used CT scans to check belly fat levels, and MRIs to check the brain volumes, of 733 adults with an average age of 60. Nearly 70 percent of the patients were women.
The researchers found that those with the highest BMIs had the lowest brain volumes, according to the study in the Annals of Neurology.
But is that really surprising? You’d have to be missing some brain volume anyway to let yourself get that big and sloppy in the first place (don’t get mad at me for saying it — you’ve done this to yourself).
Other researchers have made the same link, and one study found that people with the biggest, fattest bellies had three times the risk of dementia of those with the smallest stomachs.
In the new study, the link was strongest among those who had the most fat around the organs and gut — abdominal fat, and the so-called “beer belly.”
But if you’re that fat, there’s a whole lot more than beer in that belly. After all, despite what you’ve been told, a couple of cold ones at the end of the day are GOOD for you.
No, forget beer — those bellies are packed full of doughnuts, candy bars and pizzas.
You want to lower your risk, lose the weight. But so many people are getting so fat that eventually, we’ll be overrun with bloated, hungry, tiny-brained dementia patients.
I hope you’ve been brushing up on your zombie skills — because that’s not far off from “Night of the Living Dead” after all.
