Study: Dementia linked to short arms

BALTIMORE, May 7 (UPI) -- Having shorter arms can increase the risk of developing dementia, U.S. researchers found.

The study, published in the journal Neurology, found women with the shortest arm spans were 1.5 times more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's disease than women with longer arm spans.

Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore tracked 2,798 people for an average of five years and took knee height and arm span measurements. For every inch longer a woman's leg, the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease was reduced by 16 percent, the study concluded.

In men, only arm span was associated with a lower risk of dementia. With every increased inch in arm span, men had a 6 percent decrease in risk of dementia. The associations with such measurements in men and women were stronger toward Alzheimer's disease compared to other types of dementia.

Tina L. Huang now at Tufts University in Boston suggests the association between short limbs and dementia risk may be due to a third factor such as poor nutrition in early life.