Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Changes in the immune system explain why belly fat is bad for thinking
These findings could lead to new treatments that help maintain mental flexibility in aging adults with obesity, sedentary lifestyles, or muscle loss that naturally happens with aging.
The study, led by Auriel Willette, assistant professor of food science and human nutrition, and Brandon Klinedinst, a PhD student in neuroscience, looked at data from more than 4,000 middle-aged to older UK Biobank participants, both men and women. The researchers examined direct measurements of lean muscle mass, abdominal fat, and subcutaneous fat, and how they were related to changes in fluid intelligence over six years.
Willette and Klinedinst discovered people mostly in their 40s and 50s who had higher amounts of fat in their mid-section had worse fluid intelligence as they got older. Greater muscle mass, by contrast, appeared to be a protective factor. These relationships stayed the same even after taking into account chronological age, level of education, and socioeconomic status.
"Chronological age doesn't seem to be a factor in fluid intelligence decreasing over time," Willette said. "It appears to be biological age, which here is the amount of fat and muscle."
Generally, people begin to gain fat and lose lean muscle once they hit middle age, a trend that continues as they get older. To overcome this, implementing exercise routines to maintain lean muscle becomes more important. Klinedinst said exercising, especially resistance training, is essential for middle-aged women, who naturally tend to have less muscle mass than men.
The study also looked at whether or not changes in immune system activity could explain links between fat or muscle and fluid intelligence. Previous studies have shown that people with a higher body mass index (BMI) have more immune system activity in their blood, which activates the immune system in the brain and causes problems with cognition. BMI only takes into account total body mass, so it has not been clear whether fat, muscle, or both jump-start the immune system.
Journal Reference:
Brandon S. Klinedinst, Colleen Pappas, Scott Le, Shan Yu, Qian Wang, Li Wang, Karin Allenspach-Jorn, Jonathan P. Mochel, Auriel A. Willette. Aging-related changes in fluid intelligence, muscle and adipose mass, and sex-specific immunologic mediation: A longitudinal UK Biobank study. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 2019; 82: 396 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2019.09.008
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 22 2019, @04:00AM (17 children)
As with all prejudices, it doesn't work 100% in either direction, but there is a fairly common prejudice that fat people are dumb.
Of course, Americans are fat, so by extension... and I really can't argue, on average we seem to be pretty pathetic - especially lately.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday December 22 2019, @04:29AM (2 children)
Ho, ho, ho! Sorry, you were doing so well, and then you blew it. Coal for you, and good luck next year!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 22 2019, @04:54PM (1 child)
Surely if Santa is a unique and exceptional magical elf, any fat correlations for mere mortal humans would not apply...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday December 22 2019, @08:48PM
Especially not once you've seen him in action [youtube.com].
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Sunday December 22 2019, @04:32AM (6 children)
Funny, but the study says that in men, more muscle mass is as important as less fat. My first thought is not intelligence for muscled-up guys like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday December 22 2019, @05:36AM (3 children)
You wouldn't think so [youtube.com], but Arnie's done a lot in his lifetime [schwarzenegger.com].
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Sunday December 22 2019, @07:23AM (2 children)
I liked him in his Terminator roles. He became a politician because he was too famous to be a car salesman.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Bot on Sunday December 22 2019, @08:31AM (1 child)
Sad to see people's careers involve so quickly.
Arnie didn't ever strike me as dumb, except when he was acting dumb in the first TV episodes featuring an emotional body builder, and stallone reportedly wrote the 80+ pages rocky script in 3 days and a half, and, quite more importantly, succesfully negotiated to be in the movie instead of selling it.
But those are body builders not fat men.
Ask wikipedia about Carlo Pedersoli AKA Bud Spencer
"A successful swimmer in his youth[italian record man and olympic half finalist], he obtained a law degree and registered several patents. Spencer also became a certified commercial airline and helicopter pilot".
In other words, the correlation is, act young, stay young, sit down in front of TV, get fat, and dumb. I guess there won't be much controversy over this one.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Sunday December 22 2019, @10:17AM
As long as you don't sit down in front of the TV [scientificamerican.com], even if the rest stays true, your brain will be healthier. I recall reading about a *lot* of physical/mental health benefits -- not particularly weight loss, though -- from research on exercise appearing within the last six years or so.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Sunday December 22 2019, @04:17PM
Both are extremely smart and savvy business men who work very long hours. The muscles are actually secondary to that. With that said and completely ignoring politics, I will say that Arnie has made a bunch of boneheaded mistakes over the years, but that tended to be when he was younger. Neither may be as popular these days as before, but that doesn't make them less smart. Hollywood is very fickle.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday December 22 2019, @04:53PM
Probably the most important exercise / lifestyle book out there today, is the heavily footnoted and stuffed with medical journal references "The Barbell Prescription".
It seems there is some wild cause and effect confusion, but the ratio of muscle to fat seems to have a huge impact on long term blood sugar levels. Which makes sense because one fuels the other, etc. And its a hell of a lot easier to pack a pound of new muscle onto a couch potato, than to carve a pound off them via starvation when blood sugar levels are very high (due to being fat). So it seems most medical research indicates most metabolic sensible best way to lose fat in the long run is to gain muscle in the short term, and the best way to keep fat off in the long term is to keep a lot of muscle on in the long term.
To poorly summarize a book full of medical data, it seems more muscles will fix the blood sugar issues, then with fixed blood sugar levels, fixing the excess fat is vastly easier requiring maybe 100x less willpower.
High blood sugar levels are pretty much by definition Type II diabetes and everyone knows that makes people tired / lazy / foggy mentally which might appear to be dumb although they're just fucked up like being drunk all the time, and also research seems to imply high glucose will F up the circulatory system, and some google will show infinite medical journal stuff along the lines of high blood sugar also Fs up the immune system. Realistically, screwing up your fuel supply would logically screw up every other system in your body up.
You can be fat, especially if you're very young, without type 2, and without type 2, nothing bad should happen except for joint pain and damage? But it seems once type 2 sets in, every system in the body turns to shit which quite possibly makes people look dumb as a side effect. Can't ace an IQ test if you're falling asleep during the test, LOL.
I think possibly the journal article linked to today, is confusing two results of high blood sugar as somehow one result is causing the other result. Or possibly blood sugar malfunctions F up both the brain and immune system independently in a circular feedback loop.
Kinda a syndrome where awful muscle to fat ratios appear with high blood sugar along with crap immune system along with messed up brain function along with circulatory issues, all mixed together and feeding into each other with positive feedback. You can't reboot the entire system by filtering the glucose out of your blood continuously or swap out your whole immune system or replace your circulatory system. BUT you can pick up a dumbbell and the lazier you are, the less work you have to do to have a huge impact on the ratio of muscle to fat, and that'll drag along the rest of the syndrome into a much better health equilibrium.
And as usual most of the benefits of doing something come to those who do a bit not extremist. So I might be 10x healthier in magic health units than a dude who doesn't lift, but Arnie is probably only 11x healthier or 10.1 times healthier. Arnie IS gonna live longer than a fat relative of his, but not 10x longer. Most of the lifters who die young did steroids very wrongly, like insane dosage or imported strange mystery substances from China where the mystery substance might not have been very healthy.
At any rate, all recent medical research seems to boil down to; you can either lift today, or regret not doing it later.
WRT this specific study, I'm not saying its wrong, but it does seem to make ... unusual conclusions that probably could be interpreted more logically in the sense of pre-existing theory and research and books.
WRT subjective observation, lifters on the coast are hyper anti-social but in civilized areas away from the coasts we tend to be more social, and based on discussion, the folks at the gym seem to be much smarter than average because they have more self discipline than the average couch potato; a couch potato can't have the self discipline to lift or ... start a business, perhaps, so they look dumber. Whereas even a slightly dumber than average soldier or civilian lifter is going to simply accomplish more and thus appear smarter than a lazier person. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take and people with willpower will simply make more shots than potatoes.
Besides, I go to my gym, that probably boosts the average IQ of the average lifter by a couple points right there. (like how can anyone not expect me to be a giant smartass?)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 22 2019, @05:49AM (6 children)
Chicken-egg question: does fat make people dumb, or do dumb people get fat?
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday December 22 2019, @05:55AM
Perhaps, its beer that makes people dumb.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday December 22 2019, @08:33AM
By focusing on correlation, the study elegantly dodges the question.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Sunday December 22 2019, @10:45AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 22 2019, @05:11PM (1 child)
IQ is extremely heritable, and there is already a very strong correlation established between low IQ and obesity. So the only remaining question is could this relationship be causal? Seems practically self evident. Nobody wants to get obese and it's pretty easy to avoid it. Literally just eat less. All you need is some degree of self discipline, logic, and longterm planning. And those very characteristics are directly driven by intelligence.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday December 23 2019, @02:59AM
1) low IQ and obesity correlate
2) whatever's behind them is heritable
3a) they chose the latter, obesity
Why did you not do:
3b) they chose the former, low IQ
I know, absurd, right? Yet the argument for that is precisely as strong given what you've based (3a) from. Which should give you pause. Just the "it's heritable" you offer should reduce your willingness to immediately conclude "they chose it".
You're displaying a lack of knowledge of the Dutch Hunger Winter, for example. Epigenetics has a clear explanation for some cases of various matabolic syndromes.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday December 23 2019, @02:40AM
Actually, different chicken/wrong egg. Excess abdominal fat indicates low thyroid function, which also causes brain fog (functionally, lowered cognition).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 22 2019, @04:51AM (4 children)
Maybe they should compare straightness of teeth first. Or the number of pubs in walking (rolling) distance per town.
I am 65 and 400lbs. Still put the light weight jocks to bed. Cannot work for 48hrs or more and do not even know basic facts of equipment design, like 2 data streams from same computer to a printer... What happens?
Idiots!
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Sunday December 22 2019, @10:45AM (3 children)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe you can enlighten us.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday December 22 2019, @11:42AM (1 child)
lp0 on fire
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Coward, Anonymous on Sunday December 22 2019, @12:27PM
I was thinking, maybe that's how to print Cyrillic.
Лорем ипсум долор сит амет, не вис тибияуе аппеллантур, малис риденс нам еи, ад мел саепе малорум дефинитионем. Нам ат прима сцрипта продессет. Еум ет фабулас малуиссет. Ан еам инермис албуциус мандамус. Вис но атяуи ессент цонтентионес, демоцритум цонсеяуунтур ет нам, ид сеа юсто иуварет хендрерит.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 22 2019, @06:26PM
Which every one starts first is dropped with a response of "complete". The second completes normally. It is function in the LPR transfer implementation. IT is why it is STUPID to install the printer twice on a machine. you will lose up to 1/2 of all reports. Why it is import to use printer spoolers, too.
Found idiots installed the same printer (actual 20 different models) on a printer server twice under 2 different names to improve throughput! Yes it worked, by dropping 1/2 of the reports.
What is the minimum number of wires needed for a properly built/wired RS-232 interface concretion?
Only 1 - the ground pin-7 already building ground. Connect send to receive, and you are done.
2 - if you need need to send and receive like XON-XOFF flow control.
But for HOBIC interfaces was "send-and-pray" anyway (single at 300 baud, with no repeat), so extra wire is meanness. Though hard to find 1 wire network cord.