MORE REASONS TO LOSE SOME POUNDS

Calorie cutting may help older obese people with thinking problems Published January 08, 2016.  

Older obese people with mild cognitive impairment who lose a small amount of weight may see some improvement on tests of thinking skills, according to a new study. Mild cognitive impairment causes slight but noticeable declines in memory and thinking skills, and increases the risk of Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia developing later, according to the Alzheimer's Association. "Increased adiposity has been correlated with reduced volume in a number of brain regions," said lead author Dr. Nidia Celeste Horie of the University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine in Brazil. Calorie restriction has many benefits for humans, including reduced abdominal fat mass, and may also improve the resilience of synapses in the brain, she said. "The results should be reproduced in other settings before it is considered a standard recommendation," Horie said.  "At the moment, obese individuals should try to lose weight as young as they can, to protect health in general and the brain in particular, and obese elderly with mild memory problems should try to lose weight to improve comorbidities, knowing that at least it will not be harmful for cognitive skills and with luck they could be preventing dementia. The researchers divided 80 obese people over age 60 with mild cognitive impairment into two groups, one of which received usual medical care while the other also met in group nutritional counseling meetings for a year. The average age was 68. All the participants were advised to meet physical activity guidelines, including doing at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise or walking throughout the week, or if limited due to health conditions, aiming to be as physically active as possible. The nutritional counseling group also met about 28 times for one-hour sessions, which included advice on eating a diet rich in fiber, fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and on how to achieve a daily 500-calorie deficit.