In 1994, dementia was diagnosed in 713 (7 percent) participants. [RL: Hurray! They give us something like a baseline risk here.] Obese people (body mass index 30 or above) were 74 percent more likely to have dementia, while overweight people (body mass index 25-29.9) were 35 percent more likely to have dementia compared with those of normal weight (body mass index 18.6-24.9). [RL: Roughly speaking this seems to mean that someone with normal weight is about 5% likely to get dementia and an obese person is about 9% likely to get it. (UPDATE: My calculations are wrong here but you get the idea.) Is this increase big or small? I dunno.]

Body mass index predicted dementia more strongly among women. For example, obese women were 200 percent more likely to have dementia than women of normal weight, while obese men had a non-significant 30 percent increase in risk. [RL: At least they didn't disregard the 30 percent figure just because it was "non-significant" in a statistical sense.]