Weight loss may warn of dementia

Weight loss in elderly men appears to be a harbinger of dementia and a contributing factor in their increasing frailty.

Although preventing weight loss is unlikely to prevent mental decline, maintaining weight may help stave off the physical dependence on other people and the falls and poor wound healing that can accompany old age, said a report published in the January issue of Archives of Neurology journal.

In a three-decade study of 1,890 Japanese American men age 77 or older, called the Honolulu-Asia Aging Study, researchers identified 112 men who developed dementia. A high proportion of the impaired subjects had lost at least 11 pounds, or 10% of their body weight, in the two to four years prior to the onset of dementia symptoms.

There was a similar association between weight loss and Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia, wrote study author Robert Stewart of the Institute of Psychiatry in London.