A new, long-term study finds that midlife obesity raises the risk of dementia in women. However, calorie intake and physical inactivity do not.

Sarah Floud, Ph.D., of the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, is the lead author of the study.

As Floud and her colleagues explain in their paper, some previous studies have found an association between a low body mass index (BMI) and the likelihood of receiving a diagnosis of dementia within the next 5–10 years.

Other studies that lasted a decade or less have also linked poor diet and lack of exercise with the incidence of dementia.

However, all of the above may be the result of reverse causality, meaning that they may be consequences, rather than causes, of dementia. This situation could well be possible, explain the authors, because dementia typically affects cognition a decade before the person formally receives a diagnosis.

During this preclinical stage, the condition can slowly but gradually affect behavior, impair mental and physical activity, reduce the intake of food and calories, and cause weight loss.

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