Obesity, Heart Factors Cause Cognitive Decline In Latinos: Study

San Diego CA

03 August, 2021

2:37 PM

Description

SAN DIEGO, CA — UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers found that obesity and cardiovascular factors combine to cause cognitive decline in Latinos, a report published Tuesday revealed. Obesity is linked to several abnormalities, such as high blood sugar and hypertension, which are considered to be risk factors for Alzheimer's disease. Nearly 45% of Latino adults are obese, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Minority Health. However, in the study -- published in the print issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease -- researchers at UCSD School of Medicine, with colleagues elsewhere, report that obesity alone is not associated with cognitive decline among Latinos. "These data clearly suggest that individuals with obesity take a big hit to their cognition when other risk factors, such as diabetes and high cholesterol, are present," said Ariana Stickel, first author of the report and a postdoctoral scholar in the school's Department of Neurosciences. "Obesity/fat stigma tends to put a hyper-focus on a number on the scale, sometimes at the expense of other health goals," she continued. "If maintaining a specific weight is difficult, preventing or managing cardiometabolic abnormalities is just as important, if not more important from a cognitive health standpoint." Researchers examined data from more than 6,000 participants enrolled in the Study of Latinos-Investigation of Neurocognitive Aging. Participants were ethnically diverse, including Central Americans, Cubans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and South Americans, residing in one of four U.S. cities: San Diego, New York City, Miami and Chicago. Participants completed a range of cognitive exams at two time-points, seven years apart on average. Additionally, they underwent clinical testing to assess obesity and cardiometabolic abnormality, defined has having two or more of the following conditions: high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglycerides and low "good" cholesterol. After accounting for factors such as age, gender, education and depressive symptoms, the researchers found that obesity alone did not predict how well someone performed on cognitive testing seven years later nor the extent of cognitive decline across that time period. Instead, Stickel said, cardiometabolic abnormality was more strongly associated with cognitive function and decline. Individuals with obesity and cardiometabolic abnormality had much lower performance results on testing and greater cognitive decline than obese peers who did not present with cardiometabolic abnormality. Moving forward, the authors want to investigate the relationships between obesity, cardiometabolic risk and cognition in a more dynamic way. "Weight can fluctuate in later life, and we sometimes see sharp declines in weight in Alzheimer's disease," said senior author Hector Gonzalez, professor in the Department of Neurosciences. "However, this pattern has yet to be well-characterized in a diverse Latino cohort." In the published study, Gonzalez and colleagues looked at individuals 50 to 86 years of age, but they were unable to assess age-of-onset or duration of obesity and/or cardiometabolic abnormality. "Unfortunately, obesity and subsequent cardiometabolic abnormalities are seen at younger ages, and Latinos have the highest rates of childhood obesity in the United States," he continued. "It is unclear if and how this impacts cognition, job performance and the workforce as a whole. "Health care workers and researchers need to invest more time into developing culturally appropriate interventions to tackle obesity and cardiometabolic abnormalities among Latinos of all ages," Gonzalez concluded. — City News Service