@article {12788, title = {Association of Long-Term Body Weight Variability With Dementia: A Prospective Study.}, journal = {The Journals of Gerontology, Series A }, volume = {77}, year = {2022}, pages = {2116-2122}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Body weight variability (BWV) refers to intraindividual weight loss and gain over a period. The association of long-term BWV with dementia remains unclear and whether this association is beyond body weight change is undetermined.

METHODS: In the Health and Retirement Study, a total of 5 547 dementia-free participants (56.7\% women; mean [SD] age, 71.1 [3.2] years) at baseline (2008) were followed up to 8 years (mean = 6.8 years) to detect incident dementia. Body weight was self-reported biennially from 1992 to 2008. BWV was measured as the coefficient of variation utilizing the body weight reported 9 times across 16 years before baseline. Cox-proportional hazard model was used to estimate the hazard ratio (HR) and 95\% confidence interval (CI).

RESULTS: Among the 5 547 participants, a total of 427 incident dementia cases were identified during follow-up. Greater long-term BWV was significantly associated with a higher risk of dementia (HR comparing extreme quartiles: 2.01, 95\% CI: 1.48-2.72; HR of each SD increment: 1.21, 95\% CI: 1.10-1.32; p-trend < .001) independent of mean body weight and body weight change. This significant association was even observed for BWV estimated approximately 15 years preceding dementia diagnosis (HR of each SD increment: 1.13, 95\% CI: 1.03-1.23) and was more pronounced for that closer to diagnosis.

CONCLUSION: Our prospective study suggested that greater BWV may be a novel risk factor for dementia.

}, keywords = {Body Weight, Proportional Hazards Models, Prospective Studies, Risk Factors, Weight Loss}, issn = {1758-535X}, doi = {10.1093/gerona/glab372}, author = {Chen, Hui and Zhou, Tianjing and Guo, Jie and Ji, John S and Huang, Liyan and Xu, Weili and Zuo, Guangmin and Lv, Xiaozhen and Zheng, Yan and Hofman, Albert and Ma, Yuan and Yuan, Changzheng} }