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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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Does It Matter Where the Excess Fat Is? Body mass index (BMI), calculated by dividing a person’s weight (kilos) over the square of his or her height (meters), has long been used to determine whether a person is overweight or obese. Some studies, however, have also supported that abdominal obesity is better at predicting heart disease than overall obesity. The question is: when a person is overweight or obese, does it matter where the excess fat is? In a paper published online on March 10, 2011 in the journal ‘Lancet’, researchers from University of Cambridge in England reported that any excess fat is bad for the heart, no matter where it is located. The results of this new review of studies showed that a BMI could predict heart disease risks just as well as a large waist. To study the separate and combined associations of BMI, waist circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio with risk of first-onset cardiovascular disease, researchers analyzed health data gathered in 17 countries in 58 pervious studies involving 221,934 people who were monitored for 10 or more years.
It was found that 14,297 participants had had a heart attack or stroke. The results showed that waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, and BMI measurements were all of similar ability to predict a person's risk of getting heart disease or stroke. In other words, it does not matter whether a person carries weight around the waist or any other part of the body. As long as one has excess fat, it is bad for the heart. On the other hand, some health experts argued that being ‘apple-shaped’ might still be able to spur more heart problems than being ‘pear-shaped’ might. When a person has excess weight around the abdomen, he or she is ‘apple-shaped’, and those who have excess fat around the bottom and thighs are ‘pear-shaped’. As previous studies have shown, belly fat is more strongly linked to metabolic syndrome that includes insulin resistance and Type-2 diabetes than fat in other parts of the body. As such, measures of central obesity are considered to be more informative than BMI in terms of predicting later heart disease and stroke. Researchers from Mayo Clinic reported in 2010 in the journal ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ that fat cells created as a result of weight gained in the thighs can function normally, but when people gain weight in their bellies, existing fat cells will expand and cannot store and release fat properly. Nevertheless, they also pointed out that waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio can sometimes be calculated differently across studies, whereas BMI is universally calculated the same way. Hence waist circumference might not be as helpful as what people may think. While people might be afraid to stand on a weighing scale, waist size could still be a good way for people to gauge their health. After all, putting on pants is almost an everyday affair for most people. Overweight and obesity are not conditions people can take lightly as they can raise one’s risk of developing Type-2 diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), heart disease and stroke. So anyone who is carrying excess weight, irrespective of where it is located, should seek ways to lose weight. This is particularly important for people with ‘apple shape’. For most people with some extra weight, it is possible for them to lose weight by adhering to the 2 basic principles: change their lifestyle to improve diet and increase their physical activity. But for people who are obese, sometimes it would be necessary for them to seek help from their doctors, who can recommend safest ways that are suitable for them. Very often, they would require medications and even surgery to get rid of the extra fats.
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