MEDICAL SCIENCE
Medical Updates Belly fat may reduce mental agility from midlife onward
A study of thousands of middleaged and older people has linked having more body fat and less muscle mass to changes in mental flexibility with age. The research also suggests that changes to the immune system may play a role. Researchers from Iowa State University (ISU) in Ames analyzed data on 4,431 males and females with an average age of 64.5 years and no cognitive impairments. The researchers examined the relationship that variations in abdominal subcutaneous fat and
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January 2020
lean muscle mass had with changes in fluid intelligence over a 6 year period. (Fluid intelligence refers to reasoning, thinking abstractly, and solving problems in novel situations, regardless of how much knowledge the person has acquired.) The analysis showed that fluid intelligence tended to reduce with age in those participants who carried more abdominal fat. In contrast, having more muscle mass appeared to protect against this decline. The team also found that the effect of muscle mass was greater than that of having more body fat.
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