Obesity Linked to Twice The Volume of Brain Abnormalities, Study Finds

What BBN said about it

1. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe claim under review: obesity is linked to twice the volume of brain abnormalities. ScienceAlert reports on a study of one hundred ninety people.

2. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorTwice. Twice the abnormalities, Hank. I've been saying the head was the first thing to go since two thousand nine.

3. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe outlet says people with more clinical obesity over their lives had more than twice the median volume of white matter hyperintensities in their fifties.

4. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorWhite matter hyperintensities. Sounds like a band that plays weddings and ruins them.

5. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorEvidence for: one hundred thirty-three of the hundred ninety had been clinically obese at some point.

6. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe data came from the Bogalusa Heart Study, which started in nineteen seventy-two.

7. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorFifty years of watching people.

8. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorAnd the scans came from one afternoon each, I assume, so we've built a prophecy on a single photograph and nobody's even blinked.

9. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorClose. The researchers say the group was small and the brain changes showed on only one set of scans.

10. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorAnd it's an association, not proof of cause.

11. 

    Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorOne set. So the catch is the whole study.

12. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorI rate it Mildly Bonkers. The finding is real, the word twice is real, and the study is honest about its limits. Stamp it.