Being overweight ages people's brains

The brains of overweight people look "10 years older" than those of leaner peers, a study has found. Brains naturally lose white matter - the part of the brain that transmits information - as people age.

A Cambridge University team found that loss was exacerbated with extra weight - so an overweight 50-year-old had a lean 60-year-old's brain. Researchers said it shows we need to know relatively more about how extra weight affects the 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. Those in the overweight group had much less white matter than their thinner counterparts.