The present study set out to investigate the relation of obesity to performance in verbal abilities, processing speed, and cognitive flexibility and its interplay with key correlates of cognitive reserve in a large sample of older adults.
A total of 2,812 older adults served as a sample for the present study. Psychometric tests on verbal abilities, processing speed, and cognitive flexibility were administered. In addition, individuals were interviewed on their weight and height (to calculate body mass index; BMI), educational attainment, occupation, and engaging in different activities throughout adulthood.
Obesity (BMI ≥30) was significantly associated with a lower performance in verbal abilities, processing speed, and cognitive flexibility. Moderation analyses showed that obesity was related to lower processing speed and cognitive flexibility only in individuals with low engagement in activities and low education. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that obesity was not related to any of the three investigated cognitive performance measures when cognitive reserve in early and midlife was taken into account.
Present data suggest that cognitive reserve accumulated during the life course may reduce the detrimental influences of obesity on cognitive functioning in old age.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 January 2020.
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#11,109,863
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Outputs from Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders
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Outputs of similar age from Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders
#19
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Altmetric has tracked 33,779,198 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 66th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,274 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.7. This one is in the 47th percentile – i.e., 47% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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