Overweight women who lose weight through dieting change the regions of their brains important for memory – this reverses obesity-related memory impairment.
Shedding the pounds not only makes you healthier, it also improves your memory, research has revealed.
 
Previous studies have shown that obese people have impaired episodic memory – the memory of events throughout life.
 
But scientists say older, overweight women who lose weight through dieting actually change the regions of the brain important for memory.
 
The study was conducted to understand whether weight loss would improve memory and if this related to changes in relevant brain activity.
 
MRI scans allowed the researchers to monitor brain activity while the study participants performed a memory test.
 
The researchers from The Umea University, in Sweden, assigned 20 overweight, post-menopausal women with an average age of 61 to one of two healthy diets for six months.
 
The study was conducted to understand whether weight loss would improve memory and if this related to changes in relevant brain activity.
 
MRI scans allowed the researchers to monitor brain activity while the study participants performed a memory test.
 
The researchers from The Umea University, in Sweden, assigned 20 overweight, post-menopausal women with an average age of 61 to one of two healthy diets for six months.
 
Later, the women were again shown the faces along with three letters, and their memory retrieval task was to indicate the correct letter that corresponded to the first letter of the name linked to the face.
Results showed the average BMI of all the women dropped from 32.1 to 29.2 – below the cut off for obesity – after six months of dieting, and their average weight fell from 188.9 pounds to 171.3.
 
Memory performance improved after weight loss, and brain activity pattern during memory testing reflected this.
 
After weight loss, brain activity increased during memory encoding in the brain regions important for identification and matching of faces.
 
Also, brain activity fell after weight loss in the regions that are associated with retrieval of episodic memories, which indicates more efficient retrieval.
 
Dr Andreas Pettersson said: ‘The altered brain activity after weight loss suggests that the brain becomes more active while storing new memories and therefore needs fewer brain resources to recollect stored information.
 
‘Our findings suggest that obesity-associated impairments in memory function are reversible, adding incentive for weight loss.’
 
SOURCE: Daily Mail
 
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