Correlation between visceral fat/muscle mass ratio and brain shrinkage

[DavidPS]

Researchers have found that a specific body profile—higher muscle mass combined with a lower visceral fat to muscle ratio—tracks with a younger brain age.

HIGHER MUSCLE VOLUME IS INVERSELY RELATED TO CHRONOLOGICAL AND BRAIN AGE WHILE INCREASED VISCERAL TO MUSCLE FAT RATIO IS POSITIVELY RELATED TO CHRONOLOGICAL AND BRAIN AGE

and an earlier article by the same group:

Relationships between abdominal adipose tissue and neuroinflammation with diffusion basis spectrum imaging in midlife obesity (2024)

Conclusions: The findings suggest that, at midlife, obesity and abdominal fat are associated with reduced brain axonal density and increased inflammation, with visceral fat playing a significant role in both sexes.

Several years ago, I purchased a smart scale online at Amazon. The smart scale tracks visceral fat, muscle weight and other metrics each time I set on my bath room scale. All for a less than a $30 investment.

[DavidPS]

Also by the same group:

Identifying obesity and dementia risk: body adiposity and neural connectivity in cognitively normal, mid-life adults (2025)

Obesity is a risk factor for dementia, creating a chronic inflammatory state that results in white matter (WM) injury. Edge density imaging (EDI) is a novel technique that has demonstrated reliability in quantifying WM changes. Thirty obese and 20 non-obese cognitively normal adults underwent structural and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) were quantified via VOXel Analysis Suite by separating signal intensities of adipose and non-adipose tissue. Scans were processed by a pipeline (MaPPeRTrac) to generate EDI. Among obese participants, there was a negative association between the VAT/SAT ratio and EDI, which was not seen among non-obese participants. Additionally, males had decreased EDI compared to females. The results of this study suggest that obesity, through WM damage, may confer increased risk of dementia, with sex as a potential differential factor. EDI demonstrates promise in delineating the neuropathology of obesity and dementia.