UK Study Shows The Bigger Your Belly, The Smaller Your Brain Is

Last Updated on 2021-10-13 , 5:09 pm

As if fat people don’t have enough reasons to lose weight.

Being the butt of everybody’s jokes, paranoia about being the last person to enter the lift in case it overloads, having low self-esteem, so on and so forth.

But then again, sometimes, you just need that extra push to get healthy and lose some weight.

If all that you’re so round a car can bang you and go flying jokes just doesn’t cut it for you, here’s one that will:

Fat people have smaller brains.

Yup. You read that right.

It ain’t fat-shaming but something researchers are saying to the world right now.

Bigger Bellies = Smaller Brains?

According to a study published by the journal Neurology, researchers have found a link between excess abdominal fats and a reduction in the grey matter volume of the brain.

In other words, it was found that the more belly fat you have, the lesser grey matter in your head.

Now, you’re wondering, why grey matter specifically?

Our brains are made up of two parts: grey matter and white matter.

And the grey matter is the part that contains the nerves which control our muscles, our sight, hearing and more.

In other words, it’s as important as the chicken is to chicken rice.

Study

9,652 middle-aged people in the United Kingdom were studied in the research.

Their body mass index (BMI) was measured and 20% of the participants were found to be obese (BMI > 30).

The researchers conducted MRI scans on individuals with a higher BMI and a higher waist-to-hip ratio (belly-size).

Results

It was discovered that individuals with higher BMI and bigger bellies have the lowest amount of grey matter in their brains.

Mark Hamer, one of the researchers and a university professor of exercise as medicine in England said that the correlation was linear.

As your belly grows bigger, your grey matter shrinks more.

White matter, on the other hand, did not show any correlation with obesity.

Dementia

Now, you’re wondering, “What happens if I have lesser grey matter? Would I stop breathing?”

Nope, you won’t.

But you might just start forgetting.

That were studies previously done that showed the correlation between shrinking grey matter and the development of dementia.

But It’s Reversible

Now, if you’ve been fat for decades (like me and my fat boss), don’t worry because it’s not too late yet.

Stanford University assistant professor Cara Bohon had proven that when test subjects successfully lost weight, their brain volumes improved.

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