Yet again obesity is in the headlines in the UK but this time it is in relation to Dementia. And, surprisingly, a study has shown that being overweight could cut the risk of dementia.
But, according to the BBC report on an analysis of nearly two million British people, in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, showed underweight people had the highest risk.
Dementia charities still advised not smoking, exercise and a balanced diet, the BBC said, adding that dementia is one of the most pressing modern health issues. The number of patients globally is expected to treble to 135 million by 2050.
The study by a team at Oxon Epidemiology and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analysed medical records from 1,958,191 people aged 55, on average, for up to two decades.
Their most conservative analysis showed underweight people had a 39% greater risk of dementia compared with being a healthy weight while the figure was 24% for the obese.
The BBC’s health editor, James Gallagher, said the findings have come as a surprise, not least for the researchers themselves.
“But the research leaves many questions unanswered,” he added. “Is fat actually protective or is something else going on that could be harnessed as a treatment? Can other research groups produce the same findings?”
And the Alzheimer’s Society said the “mixed picture highlights the difficulty of conducting studies into the complex lifestyle risk factors for dementia”.
The majority of studies show that obesity is bad for us, however, and that weight management and exercise is what we need to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Doctors have warned too that parents hardly ever spot obesity in their children, resulting in damaging consequences for health, another recent BBC report stated.
In a study of 2,976 families in the UK, only four parents thought their child was very overweight while medical assessments put the figure at 369.
The researchers, writing in the British Journal of General Practice, said obesity had become the new normal in society.
Experts said the study showed the ‘enormity’ of the obesity epidemic. Around one in five children in Year 6 is obese and a further 14% are overweight, according to the National Child Measurement Programme.
Adults do not fare any better, with figures showing that around 24% of men and 26% of women in the UK are obese.
The National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH) is the UK’s leading not-for-profit professional hypnotherapy association with 1800 therapists on its directory, all highly trained and qualified to deal with problems like weight management.
If you are worried about being or becoming obese, managing weight and bad eating habits is easy with hypnotherapy.
Simply put, weight loss is about changing your behaviours in relation to food.
There are millions of people worldwide who battle with their weight on a daily basis by trying the latest fad diet. But not all of these work in the long term, despite the diet substances, nutritional supplements and other things required to help them get the shape the results promised.
A hypnotherapist will assess why you over eat or cannot control what you eat. He or she will find out wha causes you to reach for that snack when you are not hungry and, through hypnosis and working with your subconscious, alter that pattern.
Then the therapist will construct a programme of treatment that will motivate you to exercise more and eat less.
Hypnotherapy for weight loss is about changing your habit with food for the rest of your life, so unlike crash diets it changes the root of your compulsive eating or lack of interest in exercise.
The NCH’s directory can put you in touch with a therapist near you and you could be on the way to a better and healthier life.
