Excessive weight around our middle gives our brain’s resident immune cells heavy exposure to a signal that turns them against us, setting in motion a crescendo of inflammation that damages cognition, scientists say.
It’s known this visceral adiposity, characterized by an apple-shaped physique, is considered particularly bad for our bodies and brains.
But Medical College of Georgia scientists have shown for the first time one way visceral fat is bad for brains is by enabling easy, excessive access for the proinflammatory protein signal interleukin-1 beta, they report in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
“We have moved beyond correlations saying there is a lot of visceral fat here, and there is cognitive decline here so they may be interacting with each other,” says Dr. Alexis M. Stranahan, neuroscientist in the MCG Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at Augusta University.
