David "Fathead" Newman was an extraordinary jazz and rhythm-and-blues saxophone player who worked as a sideman with Ray Charles and recorded with Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, Joe Cocker, Gregg Allman, Dr. John, and Natalie Cole. He also put out 38 albums under his own name.

While Fathead may have made beautiful music, a new study shows that putting fat together with your head is not a pretty combination.

A study published in JAMA Network Open reveals that having excess fat in general, and excess belly fat specifically, can lead to brain injury and cognitive impairment. Furthermore, the study found that excess body fat assaults the brain in ways that are additional to the damage (mini-strokes, strokes, dementia, and more) that causes cardiovascular diseases related to excess body fat. That’s double trouble.

The researchers looked at data from two studies of 9,189 adults ages 30 to 75. They found that those with the most body fat had impaired cognition associated with three years' extra brain aging compared to leaner study participants. And that was just in the three to 11 years that the study participants were tracked. Excess body fat for decades probably harms brainpower even more.

The three best ways to reduce excess body fat are eating a plant-based diet free of red and processed meats, added sugars, syrups and ultra-processed foods; consuming most your food before 3 p.m.; getting 300 minutes of activity weekly; and sleeping seven to eight hours a night.

Do those things, and you’re likely to be a "smarthead" for years to come.