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Published online: 20 August 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070820-2
Early dementia causes weight loss
Women show signs of physical change a decade before mental decline.

Mary Muers


Women could stop bothering to prepare meals as dementia sets in.
Getty
Researchers have found a simple physical symptom that accompanies the early, subtle brain changes that lead to dementia. Women who will go on to develop dementia begin to lose weight at least ten years before diagnosis, say researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

While the symptom of weight loss is too common to serve as a usable early warning sign for mental decline, researchers hope other such physical changes could be used to spot dementia before memory loss sets in.

David Knopman, who led the study published in Neurology1 today, thinks the women may have shed the weight because creeping damage in their brains caused them to lose interest in food. He speculates that the disease could cause apathy or dull the senses of taste and smell, making food less appealing.

Neurologists have long suspected that conditions such as Alzheimer's disease begin to develop 10-20 years before diagnosis. But spotting such early changes has proven difficult. This is one of only a few studies to make a link between physical symptoms and emerging dementia.

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/0708.../070820-2.html