Carrying Excess Body Fat in These Areas Speeds Up Brain Aging, Study Says
Aesthetic reasons aside, carrying too much fat poses a serious health risk. Excess fat, especially visceral fat around your organs, is linked to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and several types of cancer. It can also have a serious impact on quality of life, leading to excess strain and contributing to liver problems, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, and more. Now, new research shows that too much fat can have lasting effects on your brain as well.
The study, published in Radiology, found that the risk of cognitive decline may relate to where body fat is stored. By using MRI scans from nearly 26,000 adults in the UK Biobank, researchers mapped fat in different parts of the body, including around the pancreas, liver, and other organs. They sorted participants into six groups based on how their body fat was distributed, then compared their MRI scans and cognitive test results.
Two patterns stood out as particularly harmful: pancreatic-predominant fat, stored around the pancreas, and the skinny-fat pattern, where people with a moderate BMI carried surprisingly high fat in multiple areas. Compared with the leanest participants, all five other fat distribution groups had smaller brain volumes and less gray matter, including those who had less body fat than the average person.
The skinny-fat pattern is particularly sneaky, as it hides under a "normal" BMI, making it easy to overlook. Fat around the pancreas is linked to inflammation and metabolic stress, which could potentially explain its cognitive impact.
"Our work leveraged MRI's ability to quantify fat in various body compartments, especially internal organs, to create a classification system that's data-driven instead of subjective," says radiologist Kai Liu, M.D., Ph.D., study co-author. "The data-driven classification unexpectedly discovered two previously undefined fat distribution types that deserve greater attention."
It's been understood that high BMI can harm the brain, but this study takes it a step further, confirming that specific fat distribution patterns may independently increase your risk of neurodegeneration. As if you needed another reason to stay active! Resistance training, smart nutrition, and hitting 10,000 steps a day are simple strategies to keep fat in check and protect your brain along the way.
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