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- Relationship to Diabetes
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"Weight loss surgery 'reduces chance of Alzheimer's disease'," reports The Daily Telegraph. This misleading headline reports on a small Brazilian study of severely obese women before and after weight loss surgery. None of the women had any signs or symptoms of Alzheimer's.
Seventeen women with an average body mass index (BMI) of 50kg/m² had neuropsychological tests, blood tests and a brain scan before surgery and again six months later, when their average BMI had reduced to 37kg/m². Their results were compared with those of 16 women of a normal weight – the "controls".
All of the women had normal neuropsychological tests. The obese women performed one of the tests more quickly after weight loss surgery, but it cannot be assumed this is a direct result of their weight loss. It could be they were faster simply because this was the second time they had done the test. The control group of women did not repeat the test, so we do not know if they also would have performed better.
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/08August/Pages/Does-weight-loss-surgery-affect-dementia-risk.aspx
Seventeen women with an average body mass index (BMI) of 50kg/m² had neuropsychological tests, blood tests and a brain scan before surgery and again six months later, when their average BMI had reduced to 37kg/m². Their results were compared with those of 16 women of a normal weight – the "controls".
All of the women had normal neuropsychological tests. The obese women performed one of the tests more quickly after weight loss surgery, but it cannot be assumed this is a direct result of their weight loss. It could be they were faster simply because this was the second time they had done the test. The control group of women did not repeat the test, so we do not know if they also would have performed better.
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/08August/Pages/Does-weight-loss-surgery-affect-dementia-risk.aspx