Study on bellies belies age-old ideas about old age

I thought you were supposed to have a potbelly as you got ready to leave your 60s.

Certainly my father did. Most of my uncles did. Santa Claus did, for heaven’s sake. It was a sign of prosperity, of comfort in your old age.

Not anymore.

Those pests at Neurology Journal (never heard of them) have done a study (natch) that allegedly shows a growing body of evidence implicating jelly bellies as a major risk factor for a seemingly endless roster of diseases including certain cancers, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke, diabetes and gallbladder problems – even the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease and, yes, dementia.

It’s not just fat. It’s where that fat congregates, according to these killjoys.

When it comes to obesity and the brain, where you carry your weight may be a bigger risk factor for cognitive decline than how many extra pounds you’re packing.

It doesn’t even matter that you are not overweight if that flab is living under your belly button, which is surely an “outie” by now.

Being lovably chubby like I am is one thing. Alzheimer’s disease is something else.

Rachel Whitmer is not my favorite person. Not anymore.

“We know that obesity is somehow linked to Alzheimer’s,” says study author Whitmer, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif. “But no one was more surprised than me at just how big an effect belly fat seems to have.”

You know Whitmer is a Skinny Minnie, probably a retired ballerina.

Whitmer’s study followed some 6,500 people, ages 40 to 45, for more than three decades, starting in the mid-1970s. All participants were given a sagittal (don’t like that word) abdominal diameter, or SAD measurement, a simple procedure in which a technician uses calipers to measure the distance from the back to the upper abdomen, midway between the upper pelvis and bottom of the ribs.

At the end of the study about 1,000 participants, or 16 percent, were diagnosed with dementia. After factoring out known dementia risk factors such as diabetes, stroke, hypertension and high cholesterol, data analysis showed that potbellies were a bigger risk for cognitive impairment than obesity alone.

The bad news continues.

The fatter the gut, the higher the risk. Researchers used standard body mass index, or BMI measurements (weight divided by height in meters squared) to classify folks as normal weight, overweight or obese. Participants who were overweight and had a bulging gut were 2.3 times as likely to develop dementia as people with normal weight and belly size. Obese participants with large guts were 3.6 times as likely to develop dementia.

I hope and pray that the impossibly sleek Blue Eyes will somehow miss this news. Otherwise, she will add to the hiking and walking list she is already preparing for the spring thaw, in case that ever comes.

I will argue that I exercised furiously while spending my 50 days in Florida. She will answer by tapping my stomach and probably quoting that damned study.

I am doomed.

One way or the other.

I await the next study, the one that makes an iron-clad connection between jelly bellies and a long, happy life.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.