Fat Geography Ties to Brain Aging, Large Multimodal Study Finds

A large multimodal study using UK Biobank data (18,000+ participants) links where fat is stored to brain aging: visceral adipose tissue around organs correlates with white-matter damage and faster brain aging via inflammatory and insulin–glucose pathways, while fat in arms, legs, or trunk shows different brain-system effects. BMI alone misses these risks. The findings suggest reducing visceral fat through targeted lifestyle changes could help prevent neurodegenerative disease, but the study is observational and cannot prove causality; published in Nature Mental Health (2025).