Study links arms and legs with memory loss

by stvalentine | May 11, 2008 at 07:47 am | 442 views | add comment

Short limbs may be a sign ofnutritional deficits early in life that ultimately play a rolein brain development. Having short arms and legs may raise aperson's risk of developing memory problems later in life, U.S.researchers said.

They said women with the shortest arm spans were 50 percentmore likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's disease thanwomen with longer arm spans. And the longer a woman's leg fromfloor to knee, the lower her risk for dementia.

In men, only a shorter arm span was linked with higherdementia risk, according to the study, which was published inthe journal Neurology.

[q url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080505/hl_nm/memory_short_dc;_ylt=Aq0ZyuJEY86R31X1BFs73aqs0NUE"]Other studies have found a link between limb length anddementia in populations in Asia, and Huang wanted to see if thetrend would hold true in a U.S. population, where 80 percent ofheight is thought to be inherited.

She and colleagues studied 2,798 people for an average offive years and took knee height and arm span measurements. Mostpeople in the study were white, with an average age of 72.

By the end of the study, 480 had developed dementia.

"We found that shorter knee heights and arm spans wereassociated with an increased risk of dementia," Huang andcolleagues wrote.

"Overall, our findings suggest that as they do in theKorean populations, anthropometric measures of short stature,even as defined by Western standards, similarly predict riskfor dementia," they wrote.[q]