Weight loss may precede Alzheimer’s, study finds

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some older people who inexplicably
lose weight may be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease,
U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

A study of more than 800 healthy nuns, priests and monks
who were slightly overweight on average showed that those who
lost about one unit of body mass index a year — a little more
than five pounds (2 kg) or so — had a 35 percent greater risk
of developing Alzheimer’s than those with no weight change.

Those who gained no weight had a 20 percent greater risk of
developing the disease than people who gained a pound (half a
kg) or so a year.

The findings held true even after considering factors such
as chronic health problems, age, sex, and education.

Writing in the journal Neurology, Dr. Aron Buchman and
colleagues at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago said
they used information from an ongoing study of Catholic
volunteers who undergo extensive health exams and who keep
careful diaries.

When the study began, none of them had dementia, and their
average body mass index, a measure of height and weight, was
27.4, just over the 25 cutoff for being overweight.

During the study, 151 of the men and women, or 18.4
percent, developed Alzheimer’s.

“These findings suggest that subtle, unexplained body mass
and weight loss in an older person may be an early sign of AD
and can precede the development of obvious memory problems,”
said Dr. David Bennett, who directs the Rush Alzheimer’s
Disease Center.

“The most likely explanation is that there is something
about these individuals or about this disease that affects BMI
before the clinical syndrome becomes apparent — that loss of
BMI reflects the disease process itself.”

Doctors can look at a patient’s weight when trying to
determine their risk of dementia, the researchers said.

“There are actually very few predictors of Alzheimer’s
disease,” Bennett said. “This study makes us think about the
spectrum of clinical signs of AD beyond changes in memory and
behavior and motor skills. Changes in BMI are easy to measure
in a doctor’s office without an expensive scan.”