PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Zhou, Qi
AU  - Zhu, Wanlin
AU  - Cai, Xueli
AU  - Jing, Jing
AU  - Wang, Mengxing
AU  - Wang, Suying
AU  - Jin, Aoming
AU  - Meng, Xia
AU  - Wei, Tiemin
AU  - Wang, Yongjun
AU  - Pan, Yuesong
TI  - Obesity and brain volumes: mediation by cardiometabolic and inflammatory measures
AID  - 10.1136/svn-2023-003045
DP  - 2024 Aug 19
TA  - Stroke and Vascular Neurology
PG  - svn-2023-003045
4099  - http://svn.bmj.com/content/early/2024/08/19/svn-2023-003045.short
4100  - http://svn.bmj.com/content/early/2024/08/19/svn-2023-003045.full
AB  - Background This study aimed to investigate the relationship between overall obesity, central obesity and brain volumes, as well as to determine the extent to which cardiometabolic and inflammatory measures act as mediators in the association between body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR) and brain volumes.Methods In the context of counterfactual framework, mediation analysis was used to explore the potential mediation in which cardiometabolic and inflammatory measures may mediate the relationship between BMI, WHR, and brain volumes.Results Among 2413 community-dwelling participants, those with high BMI or WHR levels experienced an approximately brain ageing of 4 years. Especially, individuals with high WHR or BMI under the age of 65 exhibited white matter hyperintensity volume (WMHV) differences equivalent to around 5 years of ageing. Conversely, in the high-level WHR population over the age of 65, premature brain ageing in gray matter volume (GMV) exceeded 4.5 years. For GMV, more than 45% of the observed effect of WHR was mediated by glycaemic metabolism indicators. This proportion increases to 78.70% when blood pressure, triglyceride, leucocyte count, and neutrophil count are jointly considered with glycaemic metabolism indicators. Regarding WHR and BMI’s association with WMHV, cardiometabolic and inflammatory indicators, along with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, mediated 35.50% and 20.20% of the respective effects.Conclusions Overall obesity and central obesity were associated with lower GMV and higher WMHV, a process that is partially mediated by the presence of cardiometabolic and inflammatory measures.The data are available to researchers on reasonable request from the corresponding author.