Obesity Could Damage the Brain

Weight gain was not only the change in abdominal circumference, but also can alter brain function. Obesity has been shown to increase the risk of many diseases, including brain damage.

This was revealed by the researchers based on the results of several studies. I wonder how obesity can affect the brain function?

Here are 5 ways obesity can alter brain function,among others:

1. Obesity is damaging the memory
Obesity may damage the memory, at least for women after menopause. A study has observed a memory test scores for 8745 women aged 65-79 years. The results of these studies have been published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society July 14, 2011 edition.

The researchers found a rate increase in body mass index (BMI) was associated with female participants 1 point decline on memory tests. Hormone released by fat can interfere with memory. These hormones can cause inflammation, which can affect cognition.

2. Changes in eating behavior during stress
When it has excess fat and a diet to lose weight, one can experience stress. When feeling stressed the desire to eat a person will be growing. So the next day more and more food.

Diet can alter how the brain response to stress. It is based on a body of research has been published in the Journal of Neuroscience issue of December 1, 2011.

3. Obesity increases the risk of dementia
Have more abdominal fat is associated with a decrease in total brain volume in middle-aged adults. It was submitted by the researchers according to study results published in the journal Annals of Neurology.

It is possible that fat can trigger inflammation, which puts stress on the body and may affect the brain. This discovery suggests something special about abdominal fat, also known as visceral fat.

Visceral fat is fat that lies between the organs in the abdominal cavity. Visceral fat may play a role in reducing the size of the brain. Visceral fat releases a unique profile of hormones, which can affect the body in a different way of hormones released by the subcutaneous fat, or fat under the skin.

Previous studies have found that people with smaller brain volumes are at higher risk for dementia, and tend to perform worse on cognitive tests.

4. Obesity can make more impulsive
On child obesity, a brain region that controls impulsive charge, called the orbitofrontal cortex, seems to decrease compared with children without fat.

It is based on the results of a study presented at a meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in New York.

"In addition to the teens with smaller orbitofrontal cortex would more likely to be more impulsive. However, these studies do not prove a causal relationship," the researchers said.

Obesity is known to cause changes in the immune system and increase inflammation in the body. Increased inflammation can affect the brain and causes obesity leads to inflammation, which damage certain parts of the brain. In turn can lead to eating more and more obese, "said researcher Dr. Antonio Convit, from New York University School of Medicine.

5. Obesity causes of food addiction
Weight gain can affect the brain for the pleasure derived from sweet and fatty foods. So that obesity can be pushed to eat more cake. The same effects seen in drug users, who ultimately need more cocaine or heroin in the long-term use.

In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers scanned the brains of women after drinking a milkshake. The researchers looked sweet drinks to enable the area known as the striatum.

Half a year later, the researchers repeated the same experiment on women, some of which have experienced an increase in body weight.

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