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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new study finds an interesting link between limb length and dementia. The research reveals people with shorter arms and legs are at a higher risk for developing dementia. Study authors say it may be due to lack of good nutrition in the first few years of life.
Research has shown early life environment plays an important role in susceptibility to chronic disease later in life. Scientists say because the development of the brain region most severely affected by Alzheimer's disease coincides with the greatest change in limb length, they thought the two might be linked. The study followed 2,798 people for an average of five years. The participants were an average age of 72 years old. Knee height and arm span measurements were done on all the participants. By the end of the study, 480 participants developed dementia.
Study authors say they found women with the shortest arm spans were 1.5 times more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's disease than women with longer arm spans. Specifically, for every inch longer a woman's leg was, researchers say the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease was reduced by 16 percent. Interestingly, in men, only the arm span was associated with a lower risk of dementia.
The results of this research are consistent with other studies that have been done in Korean populations where shorter limb length was associated with greater risk of dementia. Researchers speculate that reduced height is often related to quality of diet in early life; therefore, environment in the first years of life may play an important role in determining future dementia risk.
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SOURCE: Neurology, 2008;70:1818-1826
