ArticleJournal of the American Geriatrics Society2024
Associations of body habitus and its changes with incident dementia in older adults.
Article in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Body weight and BMI variability linked to dementia risk: A meta-analysis.Biomolecules & biomedicine · 2025Pooled it
- Late-life body mass index and amyloid interaction on cognitive decline in unimpaired older adults.The journal of prevention of Alzheimer's disease · 2026Trial
- Association between cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome and risks of 14 age-related health outcomes in primary prevention older population.GeroScience · 2026Article
- The impact of slope-adjusted visit-to-visit body mass index variability on early dementia risk prediction.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Article
- Association of metabolic obesity phenotypes with cognitive decline in the ELSA-Brasil study.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2026Article
- Weight-adjusted-waist index, inflammation, and cognitive performance in older adults: a cross-sectional analysis from the Hordaland Health Study.Frontiers in aging · 2026Article
- A 6-year cohort study of the associations of body mass index, waist circumference, and waist-hip ratio with cognitive impairment in Chinese elderly.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Associations of childhood-to-adulthood body size trajectories with dementia risk and brain structural imaging markers: a study from UK Biobank.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Radiomic and proteomic signatures of body mass index on brain ageing and Alzheimer's-like patterns of brain atrophy.EBioMedicine · 2025Article
- Cardiometabolic Trajectories Preceding Dementia in Community-Dwelling Older Individuals.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Associations of abdominal adiposity, lean body mass, and fat body mass with dementia and cognitive change in older age.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThis study examined the associations of body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC), as well as their short- and long-term changes over time, with incident dementia in older individuals.
methodsData came from 18,837 community-dwelling individuals aged 65+ years from Australia and the United States, who were relatively healthy without major cognitive impairment at enrolment. Anthropometric measures were prospectively assessed at baseline, as well as change and variability from baseline to year two (three time-points). In a subgroup (n = 11,176), self-reported weight at age 18 and 70+ years was investigated. Dementia cases satisfied DSM-IV criteria. Cox regression was used to examine the associations between anthropometric measures and incident risk of dementia.
resultsCompared to normal weight, an overweight (HR: 0.67, 95%CI: 0.57-0.79, p < 0.001) or obese BMI (HR: 0.73, 95%CI: 0.60-0.89, p = 0.002), or a larger WC (elevated, HR: 0.71, 95%CI: 0.58-0.86, p < 0.001; highly elevated, HR: 0.65, 95%CI: 0.55-0.78, p < 0.001; relative to low) at baseline was associated with lower dementia risk. In contrast, substantial increases in BMI (>5%) over 2 years after baseline were associated with higher dementia risk (HR: 1.49, 95% CI: 1.17-1.91, p = 0.001). Increased dementia risk was also seen with an underweight BMI at baseline and a 2-year BMI decrease (>5%), but these associations appeared only in the first 4 years of follow-up. Compared to normal weight at both age 18 and 70+ years, being obese at both times was associated with increased dementia risk (HR: 2.27, 95%CI: 1.22-4.24, p = 0.01), while obesity only at age 70+ years was associated with decreased risk (HR: 0.70, 95%CI: 0.51-0.95, p = 0.02).
conclusionsOur findings suggest that long-term obesity and weight gain in later life may be risk factors for dementia. Being underweight or having substantial weight loss in old age may be early markers of pre-clinical dementia.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.