Lower Weight May Be Early Alzheimer’s Sign Nov. 21, 2011 -- Being overweight in middle age is now recognized as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, but being overweight or obese later in life is associated with a lower risk for age-related memory decline.

New research may help explain this, suggesting that weight loss may be one of several bodily changes that occur in Alzheimer’s disease long before memory problems and other symptoms appear.

Among older people who had no memory problems or who showed evidence of mild mental impairment, being a normal weight or underweight -- defined for this study as having a body mass index below 25  -- was associated with having more indicators of a high risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Body mass index is a way to measure body fat based on a ratio of weight and height.

The association was strongest in people with the least evidence of memory loss, suggesting that lower weight was not related to forgetting to eat and other behavioral changes associated with a failing memory.

"Our research suggests that there are very early [bodily] changes associated with this disease," says researcher Jeffrey M. Burns, MD, who is the associate director of the University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Center. "We think of Alzheimer’s as just a disease of the brain, but this may not be the case."

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