Neuropsychological Functioning in Mid-life Treatment-Seeking Adults with Obesity: a Cross-sectional Study.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study is to compare cognitive functioning between treatment-seeking individuals with obesity and healthy-weight adults.

DESIGN AND METHODS

Sixty-nine bariatric surgery candidates (BMI > 30 kg/m) and 65 healthy-weight control participants (BMI 18.5-25 kg/m) completed a neuropsychological battery and a self-report psychosocial questionnaire battery.

RESULTS

Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that obesity was predictive of poorer performance in the domains of psychomotor speed (p = .043), verbal learning (p < .001), verbal memory (p = .002), complex attention (p = .002), semantic verbal fluency (p = .009), working memory (p = .002), and concept formation and set-shifting (p = .003), independent of education. Obesity remained a significant predictor of performance in each of these domains, except verbal memory, following control for obesity-related comorbidities. Obesity was not predictive of visual construction, visual memory, phonemic verbal fluency or inhibition performance. Individuals with obesity also had significantly poorer decision-making compared to healthy-weight controls.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings support the contribution of obesity to selective aspects of mid-life cognition after controlling for obesity-related comorbidities, while addressing limitations of previous research including employment of an adequate sample, a healthy-weight control group and stringent exclusion criteria. Further investigation into the functional impact of such deficits, the mechanisms underlying these poorer cognitive outcomes and the impact of weight-loss on cognition is required.