Health

Overweight people may have poor memory, says study

By BIG WIRE

Posted on February 26, 2016

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Being overweight means you have less ability to recollect the past events than your peers, according to a new study that has found a link between obesity and poor memory.

If proved by larger studies, the findings will help researchers to create better interventions to deal with such disorders.

Past studies have linked overweight with changes in brain structure and the ability of an individual in performing cognitive functions, decision making and problem solving.

In the latest study, the researchers from the Department of Psychology at Cambridge led by Dr. Lucy Cheke tested nearly five dozen participants aged between 18 and 35 with body mass indexes (BMIs) – a measure of body fat based on height and weight, ranging from 18 through to 51.

A BMI of 18-25 is considered healthy, 25-30 overweight, and over 30 obese. The study participants went through a memory test where the researchers asked them to hide items around complex scenes across two ‘days’.

They were told to remember which items they had hidden, and also where and when they had hidden them. The researchers found that those with higher BMI performed worse compared to those with lower.

The preliminary study was published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

“We’re not saying that overweight people are necessarily more forgetful,” cautions Dr Cheke, “but if these results are generalizable to memory in everyday life, then it could be that overweight people are less able to vividly relive details of past events – such as their past meals,” reported science portal EurekAlert.

It is already known that overweight and obesity lead to a number chronic diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

According to World Health Organisation (WHO), obesity has more than doubled worldwide since 1980. More than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were found overweight in the world  2014.

Of these over 600 million were obese – 39 percent of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight and 13 percent were obese, it said on its website. Obesity can be prevented by a simple life style change.

Big Wire