Is metabolic-healthy obesity associated with risk of dementia? An age-stratified analysis of the Whitehall II cohort study

• Published in: BMC medicine 2023-11, Vol.21 (1), p.436-436, Article 436
• Main Authors: Machado-Fragua, Marcos D, Sabia, Séverine, Fayosse, Aurore, Hassen, Céline Ben, van der Heide, Frank, Kivimaki, Mika, Singh-Manoux, Archana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age; Blood pressure; BMI; Body mass; Body Mass Index; Body size; Cardiometabolic risk factors; Cholesterol; Cognition & reasoning; Cohort Studies; Complications and side effects; Dementia; Dementia - complications; Dementia - etiology; Dementia disorders; Dextrose; Drugs; Electronic health records; Glucose; Health aspects; Health risks; High density lipoprotein; Humans; Hypertension; Hypotheses; Measurement; Metabolic status; Metabolic syndrome; Metabolic Syndrome - complications; Middle Aged; Missing data; Mortality; Obesity; Obesity - complications; Obesity - epidemiology; Obesity, Metabolically Benign - complications; Obesity, Metabolically Benign - epidemiology; Phenotype; Phenotypes; Prevention; Questionnaires; Risk; Risk Factors; Semantics; Standard scores; Statistical analysis; Triglycerides; Weight control
• ISSN: 1741-7015; 1741-7015
• DOI: 10.1186/s12916-023-03155-4

Metabolically healthy obesity is hypothesized to be a benign condition but whether this is the case for dementia remains debated. We examined the role of age at assessment of metabolic-obesity phenotypes in associations with incident dementia. Obesity (body mass index ≥ 30 kg/m ) and poor metabolic health (≥ 2 of elevated serum triglycerides, low HDL-C, elevated blood pressure, and elevated serum fasting glucose) were used to define four metabolic-obesity phenotypes (metabolically healthy (MHNO) and unhealthy non-obesity (MUNO), metabolically healthy (MHO) and unhealthy obesity (MUO)) at