Scary Study Says Fat Belly Raises Risk for Dementia

Wow! And you thought your beer belly was just a problem with the ladies! Turns out that a big gut in your 40's can increase your risk of getting dementia or Alzheimer's disease later on, according to a scary new study done by the Permanente Division of Research. As if there weren't already enough health reasons out there to make you get rid of that spare tire, now you have to worry about losing your mind in old age as well. Heard enough yet? Here's more from CNN:

It's not just about your weight. While previous research has found evidence that obesity in middle age raises the chances of developing dementia later, the new work found a separate risk from storing a lot of fat in the abdomen. Even people who weren't overweight were susceptible.
That abdominal fat, sometimes described as making people apple-shaped rather than pear-shaped, has already been linked to higher risk of developing diabetes, stroke and heart disease.
"Now we can add dementia to that," said study author Rachel Whitmer of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California.
She and others report the findings in Wednesday's online issue of the journal Neurology.
The study involved 6,583 men and women who were ages 40 to 45 when they had checkups between 1964 and 1973. As part of the exam, their belly size was measured by using a caliper to find the distance between their backs and the surface of their upper abdomens. For the study, a distance of about 10 inches or more was considered high. The researchers checked medical records to see who had developed Alzheimer's or another form of dementia by an average of 36 years later. At that point the participants were ages 73 to 87. There were 1,049 cases.