As middle age advances, many people face the disappointment and discomfort of being unable to button their favourite trousers or of seeing a T-shirt fail to hang as straight as it did during their trim twenties and flirty thirties.
But that belly flab could be more than just an unwanted spare tyre; it is probably also a warning of increased heart disease risk, if the latest research published in the Journal Of The American College Of Cardiology (JACC) is anything to go by.
Until now, body mass index (BMI) – a metric for determining if a person is overweight or obese – has been used to assess heart disease risk.
However, the American College of Cardiology and researchers based at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in the United States say waist-to-hip ratio and waist circumference should be used instead – and outrank BMI when assessing heart risk.
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In other words, adiposity, or the build-up of fat in the abdomen, is a more telling indicator of “adverse cardiovascular health outcomes”, the team said.
This is because BMI does not properly account for belly fat, particularly the visceral fat that accumulates around organs and can resist the most disciplined of diet and exercise regimes.
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Relying solely on BMI, which is calculated by dividing weight in kilogrammes by height in metres squared, may result in misclassification of cardiovascular risk across a wide range of cardiovascular outcomes, said study lead author and JHU senior biostatistician Dr Zeina Dardari.
“Where fat is distributed matters, and these simple measures should be part of routine cardiovascular risk assessment,” said JACC editor-in-chief and Yale School of Medicine cardiologist Prof Dr Harlan Krumholz, who called for the sole focus on BMI to be broadened. – dpa
