Rhode Island Hospital study finds link between obesity, type 2 diabetes and neurodegeneration

September 05, 2008

Study is first to show obesity can cause neurodegeneration

PROVIDENCE - New research from Rhode Island Hospital found that obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) can contribute to mild neurodegeneration with features common with Alzheimer's disease (AD) - the first study to show that obesity can cause neurodegeneration. The study appeared in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease Volume 15:1 (September 2008) .

In a study on animal models, lead researcher Suzanne de la Monte, MD, MPH, of Rhode Island Hospital, utilized chronic high fat diets to cause a two-fold increase in mean body weight. In these animal models, there was a marginally reduced mean brain weight and a significantly reduced mean brain weight/body weight ratio, providing evidence that obesity with T2DM is sufficient to cause mild global atrophy in the brain.

De la Monte says, "In essence, the brain shrinks and several biochemical and molecular abnormalities found in patients with AD, including brain insulin resistance, develop with chronic obesity and T2DM. However, the extent of the abnormalities in no way matches AD." Researchers note that the neuropathological abnormalities were mild and the associated brain insulin resistance could serve as a co-factor in the development and progression of AD.

Overall, the study found that that the effects of obesity and T2DM can essentially aggravate or contribute to the severity or progression of AD, but cannot be the sole cause of the condition. The findings suggest that strategies to reduce obesity and prevent or control T2DM could modify the clinical course of mild cognitive impairment and AD.

De la Monte also notes, "We don't know yet if these effects of T2DM/obesity are reversible with weight loss. However, we're fairly sure that the abnormalities are related to the T2DM that accompanies obesity and not just increased weight."

Lifespan

---

---

	The Obesity Epidemic: What Caused It? How Can We Stop It? by Zoe Harcombe (Author) The Obesity Epidemic: What caused it? How can we stop it? does what it says in the title it answers those two critical questions. It takes you on the journey that the author, Zoë Harcombe went on to answer those questions and hopefully it will shock you as much as it shocked her. The starting point must be when did The Obesity Epidemic start? The graphs and tables show a stunning increase in obesity levels at the turn of the 1980 s and obesity literally takes off, like an aeroplane trajectory, from that point onwards. Obesity in the UK, as an example, increases almost 10 fold between the 1970 s and 1999 from 2.7% to 25%. So what happened? The short answer is we changed our diet advice. More accurately we did a U-turn in our diet advice. We used to believe (and our grandmothers...
	The Evolution of Obesity by Michael L. Power (Author), Jay Schulkin (Author) In this sweeping exploration of the relatively recent obesity epidemic, Michael L. Power and Jay Schulkin probe evolutionary biology, history, physiology, and medical science to uncover the causes of our growing girth. The unexpected answer? Our own evolutionary success.For most of the past few million years, our evolutionary ancestors' survival depended on being able to consume as much as possible when food was available and to store the excess energy for periods when it was scarce. In the developed world today, high-calorie foods are readily obtainable, yet the propensity to store fat is part of our species' heritage, leaving an increasing number of the world's people vulnerable to obesity. In an environment of abundant food, we are anatomically, physiologically, metabolically, and...
	The Obesity Cure: Weight Control, Metabolic Health, Revitalized Youth With Power Amino Acids by NovaLife At last, a breakthrough in nutritional science that identifies both the cause and solution of obesity, America's #1 metabolic disease. Using a lifetime of scientific achievement and clinical insight, Nobel associate and author, Dr. George Scheele, explains how to use nature's gift--Power Amino Acids--to avoid "addictive taste disorders"? and harness the body's own feedback mechanisms to tame appetite, rebalance metabolism, and normalize body weight. In The Obesity Cure Dr. Scheele shows that obesity is only one in a spectrum of metabolic diseases associated with the Metabolic Syndrome and accelerated aging. He demonstrates how the current "paradoxes"? of obesity and metabolic health prove that something "essential"? is missing in our current understanding of nutritional health and weight...
	My Journey Out Of Super Morbid Obesity by Cindy Snyder (Author) Cindy Snyder shares her deepest thoughts, feelings and experiences in this diary/journal in hopes to encourage others and for her to never forget where her God has brought her. Being warned by her physicians that her life was at stake, she knew she did not have the willpower to deliver herself from this bondage. This book is the personal journal of Cindy's journey out of obesity. You will be led through this journey as to what life is like for the super morbidly obese person and is filled with descriptive and explicit hardships that the super morbid obese must daily live with. Cindy has tried to be as open and honest as possible and in some instances very detailed and graphic as to what "life" had become. Cindy not only shares the battles but also lets everyone experience the victories...
	Obesity Cancer & Depression: Their Common Cause & Natural Cure by F. Batmanghelidj (Author) This book, the result of over 20 years of research, looks at the conditions of obesity, cancer and depression through a new physiological perspective and offers a new approach in preventing and treating these conditions
	Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism (California Studies in Food and Culture) by Julie Guthman (Author) Weighing In takes on the "obesity epidemic," challenging many widely held assumptions about its causes and consequences. Julie Guthman examines fatness and its relationship to health outcomes to ask if our efforts to prevent "obesity" are sensible, efficacious, or ethical. She also focuses the lens of obesity on the broader food system to understand why we produce cheap, over-processed food, as well as why we eat it. Guthman takes issue with the currently touted remedy to obesity--promoting food that is local, organic, and farm fresh. While such fare may be tastier and grown in more ecologically sustainable ways, this approach can also reinforce class and race inequalities and neglect other possible explanations for the rise in obesity, including environmental toxins. Arguing that ours is...
	Food Fight: The Inside Story of The Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do About It by Kelly Brownell (Author), Katherine Battle Horgen (Author) "The evergreen subject of American gluttony and sloth brings out the best in scientist-advocates, and the authors, while drawing on a mountain of statistics and studies, make their indictment both funny and appalling." --Publishers Weekly "Brownell and Horgen uncover some of America's biggest diet hazards and how to avoid them." --Self magazine "This is a fascinating, empowering must-read filled with practical ways to take action." --Shape magazine "Food Fight is . . . an important contribution to the discourse around the obesity epidemic. I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn more about the role of the food industry, and especially to public health advocates looking for clearly presented research and ideas for positive change." --Michele Simon, founder and...
	Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Obesity: A Clinician's Guide by Zafra Cooper (Author), Christopher G. Fairburn (Author), Deborah M. Hawker (Author) The first cognitive-behavioral treatment manual for obesity, this volume presents an innovative therapeutic model currently being evaluated in controlled research at Oxford University. From leading clinical researchers, the approach is specifically designed to overcome a major weakness of existing therapies: posttreatment weight regain. The book details powerful ways to help patients not only to achieve weight loss, but also to modify the problematic cognitions that undermine long-term weight control. Drawing on strategies proven effective with such problems as binge eating, the manual contains everything needed to implement the treatment: intervention guidelines, case examples, and reproducible handouts and forms.
	Fat Politics: The Real Story behind America's Obesity Epidemic by J. Eric Oliver (Author) It seems almost daily we read newspaper articles and watch news reports exposing the growing epidemic of obesity in America. Our government tells us we are experiencing a major health crisis, with sixty percent of Americans classified as overweight, and one in four as obese. But how valid are these claims? In Fat Politics, J. Eric Oliver shows how a handful of doctors, government bureaucrats, and health researchers, with financial backing from the drug and weight-loss industries, have campaigned to create standards that mislead the public. They mislabel more than sixty million Americans as "overweight," inflate the health risks of being fat, and promote the idea that obesity is a killer disease. In reviewing the scientific evidence, Oliver shows there is little proof that obesity...
	Fed Up!: Winning the War Against Childhood Obesity by Susan Okie (Author) Obesity now ranks second only to smoking as a wholly preventable cause of death. It is a major contributor to heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and depression. Even conservative estimates show that 20 per cent of all children are now considered to be overweight - worldwide there are 22 million kids under five years old that are defined as fat. Eating way too much unhealthy food coupled with lifestyles that don't involve a lot of physical activity accounts for a lot of what's making our children heavier. But that's not the whole story. Researchers are at a loss to explain why obesity rates have risen so suddenly and so steeply. "Fed Up!", based in part on the Institute of Medicine's ground-breaking report on childhood obesity, and written by paediatrician and...