Associations of five obesity indicators with cognitive performance in 30,697 Taiwan Biobank participants

BACKGROUND: Obesity adversely influences the central nervous system and cognitive functions. However, the relationship between various obesity indicators and cognitive performance remains controversial. It is unclear which obesity indicator is more relevant to cognitive impairment. METHODS: The Taiwan Biobank (TWB) administered the Chinese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) to 30,697 participants (12,094 males and 18,603 females) aged 60 to 70 years. A total of 3,454 (11.25%) individuals with MMSE < = 24 were classified as having poor cognitive performance. This cross-sectional study investigates the associations of five obesity indicators with cognitive performance. Five separate logistic regression models were fitted for males and another five for females. Covariates adjusted in all models included age, smoking status, drinking status, regular exercise, chronic disease status (diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, heart diseases, stroke, or Parkinson’s disease), depression status, blood pressure level, total cholesterol, fasting glucose, and educational attainment. The five obesity indicators included body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage (BFP), waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), and waist-hip ratio (WHR). RESULTS: Abdominal obesity defined by WHR was significantly associated with poor cognitive performance. Male WHR > = 0.90 had a higher risk of poor cognitive performance than male WHR < 0.90 (odds ratio [OR] = 1.233; p = 0.007); female WHR > = 0.85 had an increased risk of poor cognitive performance compared with female WHR < 0.85 (OR = 1.221; p = 3.9E-4). HC and general obesity (defined by BMI and BFP) were not significantly associated with cognitive performance. CONCLUSION: The results consistently agreed that preventing abdominal obesity is associated with better cognitive performance in both males and females. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-022-03457-x.