Larger Waist Size May Point to Dementia Risk

A November 2019 study in Obesity found that older adults with a healthy weight but a large waistline could be at higher risk of developing dementia, reports Harvard Men's Health Watch . The researchers looked at 473,000 people 65 and older who were part of a national health screening exam in South Korea. After 6.5 years, 13 percent of participants had been newly diagnosed with dementia. Dementia rates rose consistently along with waist sizes of 35.5 inches and larger among the men with a healthy body-mass index (BMI). The researchers implied that waist size may be better than BMI as an indicator of excess fat among older adults, because older people tend to lose muscle and gain fat without changing weight. A larger waist size also is a sign of excess visceral fat which also has been associated with health issues like heart disease and diabetes.