Having an excess of fat around the waist could mean you are 13% more likely to develop a devastating cognitive condition. A study found that your belly fat could predict your likelihood of getting dementia.

It is widely known that being overweight has a negative impact on your health. Obesity is linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer, for example.

However, this study pinpoints a certain type of fat as being particularly dangerous.

The research, published in Neurology journal, found that having a high level of fat around the belly increases the chance of being diagnosed with any kind of dementia, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease by 13%.

This was compared to having low levels of fat around the waist. On top of this, having more fat around the arms was discovered to raise this risk by 18%.

As noted by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), they also reported that people with high muscle strength are 26% less likely to develop neurodegenerative diseases than those with low levels of strength. As part of the study, the team from China used data from almost 413,000 people who were included in the UK Biobank database.

None of the participants had a neurodegenerative disease at the start of the study. Researchers measured their bodies to determine how much fat, muscle and bone they had in different areas.

And muscle strength was determined by their grip strength. They were divided into groups based on whether they had a large amount of fat on their belly, arms or legs in relation their overall body fat. Following an average period of nine years, 8,224 participants were diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease.

This included 6,076 individuals with any form of dementia, 2,933 with Alzheimer’s disease and 2,427 with Parkinson’s disease. The study revealed that high levels of fat around the belly or arms were associated with an increased risk of these diseases.

Conversely, those with a high amount of fat on their legs, or high muscle strength, or high bone density, were found to have a lower risk of developing them. 

Study participants who had higher amounts of fat were also found to be at greater risk of cardiovascular disease, one of the biggest causes of death across the globe. The BHF commented: “It is already known that having too much body fat increases the risk of developing heart and circulatory diseases.

“With more analysis of the data, the researchers found that in many cases there was a link between having a heart and circulatory disease and developing these brain-damaging conditions. For example, 35% of those with a high amount of belly fat, who developed a neurodegenerative disease, also had a heart or circulatory disease, and for those with a high amount of arm fat this was 14%.”

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This is not the only study to link belly fat to cognitive health. One, published in the Annals of Neurology in 2011, found that having visceral fat in middle age was associated with reduced brain volume.

It said: “In middle-aged community participants we observed a significant inverse association of anthropometric and CT-based measures of abdominal, especially visceral, fat with total brain volume.”

Visceral fat is fat found deep in the belly. A certain amount of it is necessary to protect and insulate your organs but having too much can increase your risk of numerous health conditions. To get a rough idea of how much visceral fat you have, experts at the Cleveland Clinic advise using a tape measure. Wrap it around your waist just above your hip bones.

“For women, 35 inches or more means you’re at risk for health problems stemming from visceral fat,” they said. “For men, the number is 40 inches or more.” If you are worried about your weight, you should speak to your GP.