Obesity and Vascular Risk Factors at Midlife and the Risk of Dementia and Alzheimer Disease

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Abstract
The prevalence of obesity is on the increase all over the world.1,2 Obesity is related to vascular diseases, and there is increasing evidence linking vascular risk factors to dementia and Alzheimer disease (AD). Nevertheless, the association between obesity and the risk of dementia has not been extensively studied, and the few long-term follow-up studies conducted so far have yielded somewhat conflicting results.3-6 Further, although vascular risk factors are interrelated and tend to cluster together, earlier studies have focused on a single risk factor alone.7-10 To our knowledge, no population-based study has yet evaluated the association between midlife body mass index (BMI) and clustering of various vascular risk factors with dementia and AD in late life in both sexes. Herein, we first evaluated the association between midlife BMI and the later development of dementia and AD in a population-based cohort. Second, we investigated how vascular risk factors independently and in clusters could influence the occurrence of dementia and AD.