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New research from the Bogalusa Heart Study has found that greater exposure to clinical obesity during young adulthood is associated with a greater burden of white matter changes in the brain by midlife, providing new insight into how metabolic health across the life span may influence brain health.

The study, "Life-Course Clinical Obesity and Midlife White Matter Hyperintensity Burden: The Bogalusa Heart Study," published in Neurology Open Access, used the clinical obesity framework developed by The Lancet Commission on the Definition and Diagnosis of Clinical Obesity to examine the relationship between obesity and brain health. Dr. Owen Carmichael of LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center is part of the Bogalusa Heart Study research team.

Researchers analyzed data from 190 participants in the Bogalusa Heart Study, a landmark longitudinal study that has followed participants from childhood into adulthood for more than 50 years. Participants underwent repeated assessments of their cardiometabolic health during young adulthood and midlife and later received brain MRI scans.

Rather than relying solely on body mass index (BMI), researchers classified participants according to the Lancet Commission framework , which distinguishes between preclinical obesity, characterized by excess adiposity without evidence of ongoing obesity-related illness, and clinical obesity, in which excess adiposity is accompanied by impairment of organ or tissue function or limitations in daily activities. The commission, which included three Pennington Biomedical researchers, developed the definition to provide a more clinically meaningful approach to identifying obesity-related illness than BMI alone.

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