Is my muffin top increasing my chances for dementia?

If you have been looking for a good reason to start or stay on your new healthy eating regime to reduce your muffin top, this might be enough to deter your temptation for that yummy but high caloric dessert.

When you feel an energy drain, you may find yourself reaching for something sugary to rev up your brain engine again.  After that delicious consumption, there’s a spike of too much sugar (glucose) hitting your blood stream. The excess and sudden surge of glucose causes your insulin level to rise. Insulin in turn acts to reduce the glucose load by putting it into fat storage (hence, the muffin top expansion). 

Adiponectin is a hormone found in your body fat that regulates your metabolism and insulin response. Prior research indicated that a higher level helps to control insulin and therefore decreased the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Tufts University professor of medicine and nutrition, Dr. Ernst Schaefer and his associates have cause for concern with a possible link between higher levels of adiponectin, weight around the waist and dementia.

A study of the blood samples from the famous Framingham Heart Study that has been following Framingham. Mass. residents since 1948, has found higher levels of adiponectin in those women who developed dementia and Alzherimer’s. There were not enough remaining men in the study to confirm the same effect, but male participants also had higher adiponectin levels.

Consequently, there was a 60% increase in the likelihood of dementia as adiponectin levels increased and a 90% likelihood of Alzheimer’s.

While researchers are still working to understand the relationship between metabolism, insulin, hormones and brain cell degeneration, they suspect the quality of nutrition may be a risk factor in the development of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

If your planning for a long life of brain health with alert and clear thinking, it might be a good time to consider turning that muffin top back into an hour glass.