Women who go on to develop dementia in later life experience noticeable weight loss up to ten years before the mental signs of the illness, researchers have found.
The discovery, by US scientists based at the Mayo Clinic, could help identify the brain mechanisms involved in the mental decline associated with dementia.
The study analysed the medical records of 560 patients who developed dementia, looking at their medical histories prior to developing the illness.
They found that among women, weight loss could be seen in the dementia patients, although it was not present in a control group of healthy individuals of the same age.
No similar finding was found among men, however.
"We discovered that the weight of those women who developed dementia was drifting downward many years before the onset of symptoms," explained Dr David Knopman, lead researcher of the study.
"This illustrates changes that occur before the memory loss and mental decline in dementia. We believe that the brain disease began to interfere somehow with maintenance of body weight, long before it affected memory and thinking."
However, this weight loss is unlikely to be able to help early identification of dementia rather the finding is significant in that it will help researchers better understand the brain processes involved in dementia development.