Arm, Leg Length Connected to Dementia
A recent study found that a person’s arm and leg length could be linked to the risk of developing memory problems later in life.
Published in the journal Neurology, the study’s findings support the idea that early nutrition has an impact on a person’s future dementia risk.
Overall, 2,798 men and women took part in the study conducted by Tina Huang, of Tufts University in Boston, and her colleagues.
The team followed participants for an average of five years. Most people in the study were white, with an average age of 72.
Shorter arm length in men was linked to higher future dementia risk.
In women, those with shorter arm spans were 50 percent more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease than women with longer arm spans.
The same results were found for women’s knee height.
"Body measures such as knee height and arm span are often used as biological indicators of early life deficits, such as a lack of nutrients," said Tina Huang of Tufts University in Boston, who led the study.
Huang said she wanted to see if results of similar tests in Asia were the same in the U.S., where 80 percent of height is thought to be inherited.
By the end of the study, 480 of the total 2,798 participants had developed dementia.
"We found that shorter knee heights and arm spans were associated with an increased risk of dementia," researchers wrote.
"Overall, our findings suggest that as they do in the Korean populations, anthropometric measures of short stature, even as defined by Western standards, similarly predict risk for dementia."
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