A study into the mental abilities of obese people has revealed that men who are seriously overweight suffer reduced brainpower.
During a series of mental tests, men who were classed as obese scored as much as 23 per cent less than men of healthy weights.
Experts believe that fat may harm intelligence by affecting the flow of blood around the brain, possibly increasing the risk of minor strokes and haemorrhages which can harm mental function.
Overweight women do not appear to suffer a similar loss of intelligence, perhaps because the distribution of fat around their bodies is less likely to affect blood flow to the brain.
The controversial findings come from the U.S. Framingham Heart Study, in which experts from Boston University studied the medical records of 1,400 men from Framingham, Massachusetts.
Using body mass index - a person's weight divided by their height - and a series of mental tests, researchers were able to link obesity to intelligence.
A healthy BMI is 20-25 while overweight is 25-30 and obese is 30-plus.
They also took into account educational level, occupation and blood pressure.
Findings published in the International Journal of Clinical Obesity showed that men with a BMI of more than 30 - the equivalent to a 5ft 8in man weighing more than 14 stone - scored up to 23 per cent less in tests than their slimmer counterparts.
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