Diagnosis: Dementia May Follow Higher Weight Loss in Aging

Weight loss in people over 65 can be the result of normal aging, but new research suggests that it may also be an early indicator of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia...

Older people, those in poorer health and people with cardiovascular disease lost more weight than others. But even after statistically accounting for these factors and others, the correlation between dementia and the doubling of the rate of weight loss persisted.

Dr. John C. Morris, a professor of neurology at Washington University in St. Louis, stressed that this does not mean that weight loss predicts dementia -- the magnitude of loss is too small. But he said: "What this means for the future is that we may someday be able to identify and treat people even before they have memory symptoms. Then we're preventing the disease."

•	Diagnosis: Dementia May Follow Higher Weight Loss in Aging Vital Signs volumn The New York Times, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2006 Byline: Nicholas Bakalar