Jun 9, 2009 7:48 pm US/Eastern
Underweight Americans Risk Dementia Down The Road
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
As the weather gets warmer, many New Yorkers are taking to the treadmills in anticipation of looking fit at the pool or beach this summer. The common American words of wisdom state that "you can never be too rich or too thin."
But new findings suggest there are negative consequences to being excessively slender, one of which is dementia. A recent review of thousands of dementia patients showed that being underweight increased the risk of all forms of the illness by 36 percent.
According to Dr. Michael Freedman of the NYU Langone Medical Center, dementia, which is a precursor to Alzheimer's disease, not only causes a loss of memory, but a loss of appetite.
"The part of the brain that is involved in giving us appetite has been destroyed, so the chemicals that make us hungry are no longer being produced," Freedman said. "Therefore, the person will just stop eating."
He added that losing weight is also an issue.
"Weight loss, it's turning out, is a very important sign," Freedman said.
Another study showed that people who lost weight quickly and unwillingly were three times more likely to develop dementia. An unexplained drop in weight can be caused by conditions like diabetes and cancer, among others, and researchers are now beginning to add Alzheimer's and dementia to the list.
But physicians said these recent findings were not solely negative, and could help them when diagnosing the disease down the road.
"If I'm a specialist, I might be more likely to ask (patients) have they had recent weight loss, or weight loss out of proportion to what they normally expect," said Dr. David Langer of Roosevelt Hospital.
Experts are optimistic that further examination into the effects of Alzheimer's on the areas of the brain that control hunger and weight will lead to a better understanding of the disease.
In addition to dementia, underweight people also run a higher risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures. But only two percent of U.S. adults are technically underweight, and obesity remains the nation's top problem.
A whopping two-thirds of grown Americans are obese.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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