Study links Beer-bellies to Heart diseases

Men and women with an increased waist size are at a high risk of developing cardiac disease, a new study carried out by America’s Kaiser Permanente health charity has revealed.

The study, which published in the December edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology, showed that waist size is strongly linked to cardiac health. Especially those people, who have developed a beer belly in their young age, are at the greatest risk of suffering heart attacks, the study indicated.

"The message is really obesity in the abdomen matters even more than obesity overall," said Carlos Iribarren of Kaiser Permanente of Northern California in Oakland, who led the study.

Iribarren said that Body mass index (BMI), a standard of weight measurement in relation to height, is a fairly rough way to judge a person's heart disease risk based on obesity, instead he recommended that waistline may be a better measure of health, as a scale of weight measurement in relation to height does not make a clear distinction between fat and muscles.

After observing 101,765 men and women, who underwent checkups between 1965 and 1970, for 12 years Iribarren and his fellow scientists found that men with the bigger bellies were 42 percent more likely to suffer from hardening of the arteries, angina and heart attacks than others, while a large sagittal abdominal diameter (SAD) increased heart disease risk by 44 percent for women.

Amongst people having the same BMI, the researchers found that heart disease risk rose with SAD, meaning those with the biggest waists were at greatest risk of heart disease. Even among men judged to be of normal weight, heart disease risk was higher for those with bulging bellies.

Researchers concluded in their study that even if a person had a normal BMI, an expanding waistline was a good indicator of unhealthy levels of abdominal fat.

The study showed the relationship between SAD, the distance from the back to the upper abdomen halfway between the top of the pelvis and the bottom of the ribs, and heart disease risk that was strongest among the youngest men and women.

"That's not surprising given that young people who develop central obesity younger in life would likely have more serious problems,” Dr Iribarren said.

"I think it has important implications for prevention. Don't let this happen to you when you're young, that's kind of the message," he added.