Patterns of Regional Cerebral Blood Flow as a Function of Obesity in Adults

 If you are obese and have a stroke your doctor is going to have to have special protocols to increase your cerebral blood flows. YOUR DOCTOR'S RESPONSIBILITY!

Patterns of Regional Cerebral Blood Flow as a Function of Obesity in Adults

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Amen, Daniel G.^{a; *} | Wu, Joseph^b | George, Noble^c | Newberg, Andrew^d

Affiliations: [a] Amen Clinics, Inc., Costa Mesa, CA, USA | [b] UC Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA | [c] Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA | [d] Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Correspondence: [*] Correspondence to: Daniel G. Amen, MD, Amen Clinics, Inc., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, USA. E-mail: daniel@amenclinics.com.

Keywords: Cerebral perfusion, obesity, SPECT

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-200655

Journal: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. Pre-press, no. Pre-press, pp. 1-7, 2020

Accepted 15 July 2020

|

Published: 04 August 2020

Get PDF

Supplementary Materials:

Supplementary Material 1

Supplementary Material 2

Supplementary Table

Abstract

Background:

While obesity has been shown to be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, the potential mechanisms underlying this risk may be clarified with better understanding of underlying physiology in obese persons.

Objective:

To identify patterns of cerebral perfusion abnormality in adults as a function of body mass index (BMI) defined weight categories, including overweight or obese status.

Methods:

A large psychiatric cohort of 35,442 brain scans across 17,721 adults (mean age 40.8±16.2 years, range 18–94 years) were imaged with SPECT during baseline and concentration scans, the latter done after each participant completed the Connors Continuous Performance Test II. ANOVA was done to identify patterns of perfusion abnormality in this cohort across BMI designations of underweight (BMI < 18.5), normal weight (BMI = 18.5 to 24.9), overweight (BMI 24.9 to 29.9), obesity (BMI≥30), and morbid obesity (BMI≥40). This analysis was done for 128 brain regions quantifying SPECT perfusion using the automated anatomical labeling (AAL) atlas.

Results:

Across adulthood, higher BMI correlated with decreased perfusion on both resting and concentration brain SPECT scans. These are seen in virtually all brain regions, including those influenced by AD pathology such as the hippocampus.

Conclusion:

Greater BMI is associated with cerebral perfusion decreases in both resting and concentration SPECT scans across adulthood.