Obesity is often accompanied by lower working memory (e.g., a lower ability to keep goal-relevant information in mind) relative to healthy weight individuals. Understanding this relative working memory impairment has important clinical implications, as working memory is thought to facilitate adherence to weight management programs. Theoretical models of obesity, self-regulation, and inflammation suggest that inflammation plays a role in obesity-related working memory impairments, but to date no study has tested this prediction. Therefore, the current study examined whether inflammation statistically mediated the relationship between obesity and working memory in a nationally representative dataset of U.S. adults from Wave IV of The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N=11,546, age range 25-34). Inflammation was quantified via C-reactive protein (CRP) level, and working memory was assessed using a modified digit span backward task. As expected, cross-sectional analyses showed that a body mass index (BMI) indicative of obesity-as well as greater BMI when BMI was analyzed continuously-and greater CRP were each related to lower working memory. Critically, we found that CRP levels statistically mediated the relationships between obesity/greater BMI and working memory, with CRP accounting for 44.1% of the variance explained in working memory by BMI. Moreover, these findings held both with and without controlling for relevant covariates, including demographic characteristics (e.g., age), socioeconomic status, and behavioral factors (e.g., smoking). Our results therefore point to inflammation as playing an important role in the relationship between obesity and working memory, and suggest that interventions aimed at reducing inflammation may help lessen the cognitive burden of obesity.

中文翻译：

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肥胖与较低工作记忆之间的关联是由炎症介导的：来自美国成年人的全国代表性数据集的发现

与健康体重的个体相比，肥胖通常伴随着较低的工作记忆（例如，记住与目标相关的信息的能力较低）。了解这种相对的工作记忆障碍具有重要的临床意义，因为工作记忆被认为有助于坚持体重管理计划。肥胖、自我调节和炎症的理论模型表明，炎症在与肥胖相关的工作记忆障碍中起作用，但迄今为止，还没有研究验证这一预测。因此，当前的研究检查了炎症是否在统计上介导了肥胖和工作记忆之间的关系，该数据集来自美国青少年到成人健康纵向研究的第四波（N = 11,546，年龄范围 25-34）的美国成年人的全国代表性数据集。通过 C 反应蛋白 (CRP) 水平量化炎症，并使用修改后的数字跨度向后任务评估工作记忆。正如预期的那样，横断面分析表明，指示肥胖的体重指数 (BMI) 以及连续分析 BMI 时的 BMI 更高，以及更高的 CRP 均与较低的工作记忆有关。至关重要的是，我们发现 CRP 水平在统计上介导了肥胖/较高的 BMI 与工作记忆之间的关系，其中 CRP 占 BMI 解释的工作记忆方差的 44.1%。此外，这些发现在控制和不控制相关协变量的情况下都成立，包括人口学特征（例如，年龄）、社会经济地位和行为因素（例如，吸烟）。