Nutrition Updates

"LOSS OF BODY MASS LINKED TO DEVELOPMENT OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE"

Loss of body mass over time appears to be strongly linked to older adults' risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the greater the loss the greater the chance of a person developing the disease, newresearch has found. The findings are the first to associate decline in body mass index (BMI) with the eventual onset of AD. The researchers suggest that the loss of body mass reflects disease processes and thatchange in BMI might be a clinical predictor of the development of AD.

The research, reported in the September 27, 2005, issue of "Neurology", was conducted by Aron S. Buchman, M.D., David A. Bennett, M.D., and colleagues at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL, as part of
the Religious Orders Study. The Religious Orders Study is a comprehensive, long-term look at aging and AD among Catholic nuns, priests, and brothers nationwide that has been funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, since 1993. Rush University Medical Center is one of more than 30 Alzheimer's Disease Centers supported by the NIA.

People who lost approximately one unit of BMI per year had a 35 percent greater risk of developing AD than that of people with no change in BMI over the course of the study. Those with no change in BMI had a 20 percent greater risk of developing the disease than that of people who gained six-tenths of a unit of BMI per year."These findings suggest that subtle, unexplained body mass and weight loss in an older person may be an early sign of AD and can precede thedevelopment of obvious memory problems,"

Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral (ADEAR)Center website at http://www.alzheimers.org