ALZHEIMER'S: A WEIGHTY MATTER
Rapid weight loss may be an indicator
Sudden weight loss in an older person can signal serious illness, like cancer, but now researchers believe it may indicate the beginnings of Alzheimer's Disease or other dementias. And that means that anyone caring for an older person should be on the lookout for sudden weight loss.
The warning comes from a study at the University of South Florida that involved just over 1,800 Japanese Americans, who were an average of 72 years old when the study began. The researchers recorded their body mass index (BMI), waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio for eight years. They found that people who lost weight quickly were three times more likely to develop dementia than those who lost weight gradually. Overweight participants, however, whose BMI was 23 or higher and who lost weight slowly, saw their risk for dementia drop by 82 percent. The study was published in the journal Neurology.
Whether sudden weight loss causes dementia has not been proven. Rather it's probably a signal. "What is likely going on is that...being thinner or losing weight more quickly in old age is a result of dementia that has not been detected yet," says Tiffany F. Hughes, PhD, MPH, a study author who is now a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh.
Weight loss among those 75 or older "is a problem that predicts bad things in general," says Lon S. Schneider, MD, MS, a professor of psychiatry, neurology and gerontology at the University of Southern California. "It's a major problem in the management of elderly people with illness."