New Study Shows Being Fat Actually Is Making You Dumber

So a long-term study was conducted on a group of people in their early 60s, and they discovered negative effects occurring in the brains of those who were obese.

According to National Geographic, the researchers were observing the hippocampus. No, it’s not a school for hippos, it’s a brain region that’s known to deteriorate with Alzheimer’s disease.

Anyway, as they studied this hippocampus on the obese people, they noticed a 2 percent decrease in a year’s time, a similar decrease seen in people with Alzheimer’s.

For people of normal weight, there was still a decrease in the hippocampus region, but it was only half as much as the shrinkage found in the obese folks.

A separate study by neurologist Nicolas Cherbuin showed similar results. He conducted MRIs on 400 people in their 60s and found a link between the obese subjects and diminishing brain activity.

Essentially, the more obese a person is, the more the brain decrease that occurs.

“Obesity levels are a time bomb when it comes to brain health. If we don’t do [something] now, we’re going to pay so much in 20 or 30 years. We just can’t let it happen.” -Nicolas Cherbuin

I should probably put down this double cheeseburger.

H/T National Geographic, PicThx Pixgood