Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 10 pp 9344—9353
Body mass index across adult life and cognitive function in the American elderly
- 1 Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
- 2 Department of Biostatistics, Shandong University School of Public Health, Jinan, China
- 3 Children’s Minnesota Research Institute, Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55404, USA
- 4 Department of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Research, CancerControl Alberta, Alberta Health Services, Calgary, Canada
- 5 Departments of Oncology and Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
Received: January 4, 2020 Accepted: April 17, 2020 Published: May 15, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103209How to Cite
Copyright © 2020 Zhou et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
This study aimed to examine the associations of body mass index (BMI) across adult life with cognitive function in 2,637 participants aged 60 years or over from NHANES 2011-2014. The primary outcome was a composite score based on test scores on word list learning, animal naming, and digit symbol substitution. Exposures of interest included BMI at age 25, BMI 10 years before the survey, BMI at the survey (current BMI), and BMI burden calculated from age 25 to age at survey. BMI at age 25 was inversely associated with the composite score (β=-0.0271±0.0130 per kg/m2, P=0.038) and positively with low cognitive performance (odd ratio=1.04, 95% confidence interval: 1.01-1.07, P=0.010), defined as below 20 percentile of the composite score. Similar results were observed for BMI 10 years before the survey and BMI burden. Current BMI was positively associated with the composite score (β=0.0369±0.0113, P=0.001) and inversely associated with low cognitive performance (odd ratio=0.96, 95% confidence interval: 0.94-0.99, P=0.004). In conclusion, high BMI in early adult life is associated with low cognitive function in late life, which underscores the importance of a healthy body weight across the life course. The association between BMI and cognitive function at late life requires further investigation.