The Centre, P.C. - Plastic Surgery Blog

Big Belly Linked to Dementia Risk - Thursday, March 27, 2008

Here's another reason for considering liposuction: recent studies have linked abdominal fat with increased risk of dementia later in life. People who have increased belly fat during their forties, even if they are not overweight, are at an increased risk of suffering dementia during their 70s and 80s.

According to the study, conducted by correlating increased sagittal abdominal diameter (SAD) with the rate of dementia experienced by 6,583 members of Kaiser Permanente of Northern California. According to the data, people with the highest SAD had almost three times the risk of dementia. When comparing people with a similar body mass index (BMI), people with normal body weight were 89 % more likely to suffer dementia if they had a high SAD, while overweight people were twice as likely and obese people were three times as likely to suffer dementia if they had a high SAD. Unlike risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, also associated with high SAD, there is no proposed mechanism to link SAD with dementia, but there are a number of possibilities. One is that they are linked by a common genetic trait, but another is that increased SAD can relate to body image and behavioral variables that can lead to diminished mental health. If this latter scenario is the case, liposuction or a tummy tuck may help diminish the risk, especially when combined with changes in exercise and diet for long-term improvement of body contours.

If you would like to remake your body and your body image, contact the Centre, P.C. in Elkhart, Indiana, for an initial consultation.