BMJ  2005;331:454 (20 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7514.454-a

Letter

Obesity in middle age and future risk of dementia

Problem is probably greater for women

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The paper by Whitmer et al supports the findings of an earlier study in showing that obesity in middle age predicts dementia in older age.^{1 2} The major apparent weakness of the study is the loss of 13 014 patients to follow-up. Their adiposity and sociodemographic characteristics at study entry (1964-73: n = 25 290) were reported to be the same as those who were followed up to 1994-2003. That is important. Their medical and physical characteristics are also important. We are left to accept that they were similar also. The similarity or otherwise needs to be presented with the paper.

Table 1 shows some marked differences among the people who were later diagnosed with dementia: education to grade school level only (11.1%) compared with additional education (6.9%), black race (8.9%) compared with white race (7.1%) and Asian or other races (5.5%). Adjustment for these confounders did apparently not . . . [Full text of this article]

Heart Research Centre, Melbourne, VIC 3050, Australia heart@medicine.unimelb.edu.au

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Relevant Article

Obesity in middle age and future risk of dementia: a 27 year longitudinal population based study

Rachel A Whitmer, Erica P Gunderson, Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, Charles P Quesenberry, Jr, and Kristine Yaffe
BMJ 2005 330: 1360. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]