New PET and MRI Research Suggests that Visceral Fat Reduction May Prevent or Delay Alzheimer’s Disease

Visceral fat reduction may have a significant impact in preventing or delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in obese patients, according to emerging findings from positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) research.

For the study, presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) conference, researchers reviewed brain PET, abdominal MRI and metabolic assessment data for 80 people with an average age of 49.4 and body mass index (BMI) of 32.31. Over 57 percent of the cohort were obese, according to the study.¹

The researchers found higher Centiloid scores in obese patients and higher visceral adipose tissue (VAT) accounted for 77 percent of the correlation between high BMI and the development of Alzheimer’s disease. A mediation analysis revealed that VAT plays a prevailing role in mediating the impact of BMI on Centiloid scoring, according to the study authors.¹

"Our study showed that higher visceral fat was associated with higher PET levels of the two hallmark pathologic proteins of Alzheimer's disease — amyloid and tau," noted Masha Dolatshahi, M.D., Ph.D., a lead author of the study and a post-doctoral research associate at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "To our knowledge, our study is the only one to demonstrate these findings at midlife where our participants are decades out from developing the earliest symptoms of the dementia that results from Alzheimer's disease."

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The study authors also noted significant correlations to higher Centiloid scores with increased subcutaneous adipose tissue, BMI, and Homeostatic Model Assessment for Insulin Resistance (HOMAIR) evaluations.

"A key implication of our work is that managing Alzheimer's risk in obesity will need to involve targeting the related metabolic and lipid issues that often arise with higher body fat," explained Cyrus A. Raji, M.D., Ph.D., a senior author of the study and an associate professor of radiology at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology.

Reference

1. Dolatshahi M, Commean P, Naghashzadeh M, et al. The association between body fat localization, insulin resistance, and amyloid burden in midlife. Poster presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2024 110th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting Dec. 1-5, 2024. Available at: https://www.rsna.org/annual-meeting .