Measurement matters: higher waist-to-hip ratio but not body mass index is associated with deficits in executive functions and episodic memory.

Andree Hartanto,Jose C Yong

doi:10.7717/peerj.5624

Abstract

BackgroundThe current study aimed to reconcile the inconsistent findings between obesity, executive functions, and episodic memory by addressing major limitations of previous studies, including overreliance on body mass index (BMI), small sample sizes, and failure to control for confounds.MethodsParticipants consisted of 3,712 midlife adults from the Cognitive Project of the National Survey of Midlife Development. Executive functions and episodic memory were measured by a battery of cognitive function tests.ResultsWe found that higher waist-to-hip ratio was associated with deficits in both executive functions and episodic memory, above and beyond the influence of demographics, comorbid health issues, health behaviors, personality traits, and self-perceived obesity. However, higher BMI was not associated with deficits in executive functions and episodic memory. More importantly, these differential associations were robust and stable across adulthood.DiscussionOur findings confirm the association between obesity and episodic memory while highlighting the need for better measures of obesity when examining its associations with individual differences in cognitive functions.

Highlights

High levels of adiposity, manifested as being overweight to obese, is a significant and growing challenge to public health (Clark et al, 2016)
After controlling for demographic variables in the first model, we observed that body mass index (BMI) was negatively associated with episodic memory (B = -0.007, SE = 0.003, 95% CI [-0.012, -0.002], p = 0.009)
Similar with the results for episodic memory, we observed that BMI was negatively associated with executive functions after controlling for demographic variables in the first model (B = -0.007, SE = 0.002, 95% CI [-0.011, -0.002], p = 0.007), but the significant

Summary

Introduction

High levels of adiposity, manifested as being overweight to obese, is a significant and growing challenge to public health (Clark et al, 2016). How to cite this article Hartanto and Yong (2018), Measurement matters: higher waist-to-hip ratio but not body mass index is associated with deficits in executive functions and episodic memory. A number of studies have observed that body mass index (BMI) correlates with poorer performance in core components of executive functions, such as inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory across different age groups (Cserjési et al, 2009; Goldschmidt et al, 2017; Kesse-Guyot et al, 2015; Reinert, Po’e & Barkin, 2013; Sellaro & Colzato, 2017; Smith et al, 2011). Results: We found that higher waist-to-hip ratio was associated with deficits in both executive functions and episodic memory, above and beyond the influence of demographics, comorbid health issues, health behaviors, personality traits, and self-perceived obesity. Discussion: Our findings confirm the association between obesity and episodic memory while highlighting the need for better measures of obesity when examining its associations with individual differences in cognitive functions

Methods

Results

Conclusion