Being overweight can age the brain, research shows

overweightBeing overweight is becoming an increasingly serious problem in the UK and elsewhere and recent research by Cambridge University shows that the brains of overweight people can appear 10 years older than they should.

According to a BBC report, the researchers found that that the loss of white matter – the part of the brain that transmits information – which occurs naturally as people age, was exacerbated with extra weight.

In other words, an overweight 50-year-old had a lean 60-year-old’s brain.

The team, from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience, looked at the brains of 473 people aged between 20 and 87, dividing them into lean and overweight categories.

Their findings, published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, found significant differences in the volume of white matter in the brains of overweight people compared with leaner individuals.

The difference was only evident from middle-age onwards, suggesting that brains may be particularly vulnerable during this period of ageing. The researchers said more work is needed to follow people and see who develops conditions such as dementia.

It’s a frightening prospect for some of us and being weight conscious is becoming a part of modern living with diets and eating routines becoming more and more common.

But these are often fads and their results are not always long term. But clinical hypnotherapy, on the other hand, offers a lasting solution to weight management.

The National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH) is the largest not-for-profit professional organisation for therapists in the UK with more than 1,800 trained and experienced hypnotherapists across the UK on its register.

The NCH says: “All our practising members are fully insured and trained to the highest standards, so you can choose a hypnotherapist with confidence.”

The NCH says weight management is one of the most effective results of hypnotherapy. Rather than just reducing calories that can be put on again in the longer term, hypnosis gets a person in touch with the reasons why they unconsciously eat.

“If you are the type of person that struggles to stop after a small piece of chocolate and feels compelled to finish the packet then a hypnotherapist can help you understand why and help you create new healthy self-management techniques,” says the NCH.

A hypnotherapist seeing a client for weight loss will ask questions about when they eat, what they, what triggers them to seek food when not hungry, or how often they unconsciously polish off a packet of biscuits and avoid doing exercise.

Using this information, the therapist will then put together a programme of treatment that will motivate the client 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 so you are free to enjoy the rest of your life – eating and exercising sensibly without having to think about it.”

Dr Lisa Ronan, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, who led the study, said it was not clear if obesity affected the brain, or vice versa.

She told the BBC: “Obesity is so complex. We know an awful lot about what it does to the body.

“But what it does to the brain and how it interacts with obesity – we’re at the beginning of understanding that.”

And Professor Sadal Farooqi, from the Wellcome Trust Medical Research Council Institute of Metabolic Science at Cambridge University, who also worked on the study, said the work suggested the middle-aged brain could be particularly vulnerable.

“It will also be important to find out whether these changes could be reversible with weight loss, which may well be the case. This must be a starting point for us to explore in more depth the effects of weight, diet and exercise on the brain and memory.”

And, concludes the NCH: “Losing weight with hypnosis is essentially about teaching you to feel good about yourself. It focuses on making healthy changes to your diet and lifestyle that will remain with you for the rest of your life.”