Surprising study came out the other day in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology (Ref-1). You are fat, I mean obese, you get hugely reduced risk of developing Alzheimer Disease. The authors followed up 2 million people for over 20 years, simple recording their BMI and the date of onset of dementia if that happened. Out of the 2 million, 45 thousand people developed dementia during this time. Underweight people had a 34% higher chance to get into the Alzheimer Disease group. From lean to obese, the risk of developing dementia gradually decreased. When the doctors analyzed the obese group, BMI above 40, they found that the chance of getting demented got reduced by another 29% compared to the average not skinny and neither obese group of people.
Alzheimer Disease, yeah well, next generation sequencing is my baby and that is growing into numerous medical applications. In my personal opinion the most anticipated breakthrough would be happening in cancer research, but I accept any argument what any other scientific and medical field including dementia are revolutionized by the sophisticated sequencing machines. Just think about the ABCA7 (Ref-2) gene. There is a brand new discovery that suggests this gene to be associated with the development of Alzheimer Disease. This ABCA7 discovery came from the shear force massive genomic sequencing and microarray genotyping of 100 thousand people in Iceland.
What do I say about this Lancet study? Is fat some kind of protecting factor from dementia? We do know about several genes that play a role in Alzheimer Disease development and naturally, we have to look at the environmental factors as well, like being active, especially in social context, having responsibility, never stop working and finishing your day with a crossword puzzle. Common wisdom regarding environmental factors is that the major villains are attacking from sedentary life style and obesity and putting you in the group of developing the so called “sitting diseases” including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, reproductive deficiencies, cancer and dementia.
So why does obesity lower your risk of dementia? We don’t know. This new discovery does not fit into the previously predicted list of risk or protective factors of dementia. What we know about the molecular mechanism of dementia is that the aberrantly folding beta amyloid protein leads to aggregation and plaque formation in the brain. There are different types of approaches how to treat Alzheimer Disease like braking up the aggregated, harmful Alzheimer plaque structure or even better, try to prevent the formation of the Alzheimer plaques. There is one clinical trial that does not attempt to cure it, not even tries to treat it, just wants simple to delay the onset of Alzheimer Disease. So now, based on this Lancet study, I tell you, do it yourself at home: get fat. Really, just relax, indulge into your wildest eating adventure, if you don’t like physical exercise, just sit on the sofa. You would greatly reduce your risk of getting demented and most reasonable you would die sooner from cardiovascular diseases, diabetes or cancer.
The good news is that we also have serious choices in our life. Yes, I am still strongly advocating of your genetic testing to find out what possible known genetic risks you might have that would be associated with the development of certain diseases, consult with your doctor and learn what kind of lifestyle changes you could make to reduce the potential manifestation of your genetic bad luck. Besides eating whole nutritious food, you would still stick to other aspects of healthy lifestyle, like going to the Fruit Street or learning the Latin language at old age, but hey, if you already put up some pounds, don’t worry about loosing them. Enjoy the moment of life and have sex even if you are in the nursing home for elderly. And continue eating well.
Ref-1: BMI and risk of dementia in two million people over two decades: a retrospective cohort study; Nawab Quizilbash et al.; The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, Published Online: 09 April 2015
Ref-2: Loss-of-function variants in ABCA7 confer risk of Alzheimer’s disease; Stacy Steinberg et.al.; Nature Genetics, Published Online 25 March 2015
Tibor Gyuris
Personal Genomics Blogger
“Knowledge is always good and certainly always better than ignorance”–Sergey Brin
“Possideo genes ergo sum”—Anonymous Roman Philosopher
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