With obesity there is a connection with Alzheimer’s disease and other diseases that impair brain function.
More proof of the connection has now been obtained through mouse experiments.
A new Australian-Chinese study investigated the effects of a high-fat diet on the brains of mice.
For mice were fed fatty food with a lot of energy for 30 weeks. Next, the health of the mice was compared to a group of animals that received a healthy diet.
Mice that ate fatty food gained weight and developed insulin resistance. It is a condition where the tissue’s ability to respond to insulin is reduced, and insulin levels in the blood are elevated.
Compared to mice that received a healthy diet, the group that received the fatty food behaved more anxiously.
In addition the so-called tau protein, which is found in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, accumulated in the brains of the mice.
In Alzheimer’s disease, two proteins important for brain function, beta-amyloid and tau, change.
Beta-amyloid, which is important for communication, folds incorrectly and accumulates as plaques in the tissue. The structural protein tau, on the other hand, becomes tangled.
In the exam there was also a group of transgenic mice that had a susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease due to the mutation. For them, the fatty diet caused even more harmful changes.
The cognitive abilities of the transgenic mice were already impaired, and they gained more weight than the other groups. This was due to poor metabolism caused by brain changes.
In addition, their blood sugar increased, and insulin resistance increased.
The mice showed behavior suggestive of anxiety and depression. In addition, the concentrations of the tau protein in their brains were even higher than the other groups.
“Obesity and diabetes weaken the central nervous system. This exacerbates mental health disorders and cognitive impairment. We proved this with mouse experiments,” says the assistant professor who participated in the study Larisa Bobrovskaya in the bulletin.
Research was published in the journal Metabolic Brain Disease.
According to human studies, obesity causes changes in some areas of the brain.
Obesity and the Alzheimer’s disease connection has also been observed in humans.
Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain has shown that obesity causes changes in certain brain areas and in the blood flow of the brain. These changes suggest that the susceptibility of the brain tissue to damage has increased.
The connection was studied at the University of Eastern Finland.
“Obesity already in middle age can adversely affect later brain health. The brain changes that lead to Alzheimer’s disease and other memory disorders begin already years before the disease manifests itself, so you should pay attention to weight management in time,” said the emeritus professor Hilkka Soininen in the bulletin.
In the same study, it was concluded that subjects already suffering from Alzheimer’s disease benefited if their weight stayed within the upper limits of normal weight.
Research published in The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease Reports in January 2021.
Alzheimer’s the disease is a progressive and brain-degenerating memory disorder, the risk of which increases strongly with age. Its root cause is still a mystery to researchers.
Overweight, lack of exercise, high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol increase the probability of the disease.
In addition, a higher risk of illness has been associated with less education, severe depressive episodes and head injuries.
Read more: An even stronger connection to Alzheimer’s disease was found in common oral bacteria
Read more: The changes that predict dementia begin decades before the onset of the disease – An expert explains what the new prognostic signs are and how you can influence your risk of developing the disease
Read more: Electric current improved the memory of Alzheimer’s patients – could it even be suitable for home treatment someday?
Read more: An authoritative science magazine praises a Finnish discovery: differences can be found in the blood of even working-age people that predict the onset of dementia – Brain workers are less likely to get dementia than people who do simple work