More than six million people in the United States currently live with dementia, a number projected to double by 2050. While memory loss is a well-known early sign of dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, experts highlight that changes in eating behavior may serve as critical early indicators, especially for certain types of dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, typically begins by affecting the brain’s memory center, leading to early symptoms such as short-term memory loss, repeating questions, and disorientation in familiar places. However, frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a less common variant, primarily impacts the frontal and temporal lobes—areas responsible for judgment, social behavior, and impulse control—which can leave memory intact in the initial stages.
According to Majid Fotuhi, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, one of the earliest signs of FTD involves distinct changes in eating patterns. These include sudden cravings for sweets, overeating, and repetitive consumption of the same foods. Fotuhi emphasized that the significance lies not in what is eaten, but rather in how eating behavior shifts. For instance, a person may develop a new preference for desserts despite previously showing no sweet tooth, or they may eat excessively without feeling full.
Adam S. Mednick, a neurologist at the Regional Brain Institute, concurred that increased appetite, rigid eating rituals, fast or messy eating, unexplained weight loss, diminished smell and taste, and forgetting meals can all be early warning signs of dementia. He noted that food-related changes appear earlier and more prominently in FTD, whereas memory problems tend to dominate early Alzheimer’s disease.
Fotuhi further identified behavioral cues such as a sudden loss of table manners and a decline in social awareness around food as particularly telling. Examples include eating from others’ plates, compulsive eating, and losing the ability to recognize when a meal is finished. These changes may be accompanied by a blunted emotional response to previously meaningful experiences related to food.
Because FTD initially spares the hippocampus, memory may remain unaffected even as the brain’s impulse control and reward systems deteriorate. Fotuhi highlighted that the affected brain areas govern cravings and restraint, making altered eating behaviors potential indicators of deeper neurological issues. He advised that personality changes—such as reduced empathy, social withdrawal, or loss of conversational filters—especially when occurring alongside shifts in eating, warrant medical evaluation.
Families sometimes attribute such changes to normal aging or personality shifts but experts caution that rapid alterations in behavior and identity merit attention and cognitive screening. Addressing these early behavioral signals may improve diagnosis and management of dementia forms, particularly those like FTD that present differently from the more common Alzheimer’s disease.