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Associations of Body Mass Index, Visceral Fat Area, Waist Circumference, and Waist-to-Hip Ratio with Cognitive Function in Western China: Results from WCHAT Study

  • Original Research
  • Published:
The journal of nutrition, health & aging

Abstract

Objectives

This study examined the relationship between cognitive performance and obesity parameters, such as body mass index (BMI), visceral fat area (VFA), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) in western China.

Study Design

A cross-sectional study.

Methods

3914 participants, aged ≥50 years, were recruited in this study. Anthropometrics measurements, life-style factors, chronic disease comorbidities, and sleep qualities were recorded for each participant. Among the anthropometrics, BMI, WC, and WHR were assessed using standard procedures, while VFA was calculated using bioelectrical impedance analysis. Cognitive performance was estimated using the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ). Finally, relationships between cognitive abilities and BMI, VFA, WC, and WHR were evaluated using univariate and multivariate regression analyses.

Results

Cognitive decline (CD) occurred at a rate of 13.29% among the 3914 participants. A strong correlation was observed between cognitive abilities and BMI of male patients aged 50–59 yrs (OR 1.116,95% CI1.002–1.242), in the adjusted model. Alternately, WHR was shown to be significantly related to CD in females aged ≥70 years (OR 0.041, 95% CI0.002–0.671). WC was shown to have a strong association with CD in males (OR 1.023,95% CI1.003–1.024). Lastly, WHR was closely connected to CD in participants with BMI < 25 kg/m2 (OR 0.022,95% CI0.002–0.209).

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that a higher middle age BMI is associated with CD, whereas, in the elderly population, a higher WHR is related to improved cognitive performance. Further investigation is warranted to elucidate a relationship between VFA and CD.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all the volunteers for the participation and personnel for their contribution to the WCHAT study.

Funding

This work was supported by National Clinical Research Center for Geriatrics (Z2018B09), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (20826041D4046), Post-doc Epidemic Prevention and Control Program (0040204153349), West China Hospital Post-doc Program (2020HXBH011), 2020 Zigong City Key Technology Support Plan (Project No. 2020YLSF19), Chengdu Science and Technology Bureau Major Science and Technology Application Demonstration Project (2019YF0900083SN), Department of Aging and Health, National Health Commission PRC (ZX2019023) and Grant No. 2018YFC2002400 from the National Key R&D Program of China. Postdoctoral Fund of West China Hospital (No. 2019HXBH054).

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Author notes

  1. Xiaolei Liu and Xiaoyan Chen contribute the same in this paper.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Clinical Research Center for Geriatrics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, No. 37, Guo Xue Xiang Renmin Nan Lu, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

    X. Liu, L. Hou, X. Xia, F. Hu, S. Luo, G. Zhang & Birong Dong

  2. Geriatric Health Care and Medical Research Center, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

    X. Liu, L. Hou, X. Xia, F. Hu, S. Luo, G. Zhang & Birong Dong

  3. Zigong Mental Health Center, Zigong, Sichuan Province, China

    X. Chen

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Contributions

Xiaolei Liu and Xiaoyan Chen contributed to conceptualization, data collection, data curation, formal analysis, writing the original draft, and review and editing of the paper. Lisha Hou and Xin Xia contributed to data collection, data curation, and review and editing of the paper. Fengjuan Hu contributed to data collection, data curation. Shuyue Luo contributed to data collection, data curation. Gongchang Zhang contributed to data collection, data curation. Birong Dong contributed to study conceptualization, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, project administration, supervision, and review and editing of the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Birong Dong.

Ethics declarations

Informed consent was provided by each participant or their proxy respondents before participating in the study. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Sichuan University (reference: 2017–445). All the experiment protocol for involving human data was in accordance to guidelines of national/international/institutional or Declaration of Helsinki in the manuscript.

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Conflicts of Interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Availability of Data and Materials

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to this is a newly database which has a lot of important information and we are applying some important projects based on this. But this dataset will be available two years later and is also available now from the corresponding author on a reasonable request.

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Liu, X., Chen, X., Hou, L. et al. Associations of Body Mass Index, Visceral Fat Area, Waist Circumference, and Waist-to-Hip Ratio with Cognitive Function in Western China: Results from WCHAT Study. J Nutr Health Aging 25, 903–908 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-021-1642-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-021-1642-2

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