Abdominal obesity is a strong independent risk factor for heart
disease, and using the waist-hip ratio rather than waist
measurement alone is a better predictor of heart disease risk,
according to a study published Monday in Circulation, the
journal of American Heart Association.
"The size of the hips seems to predict a protective effect,"
said Dexter Canoy, lead author of the study and a research fellow
at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. "In other
words, a big waist with comparably big hips does not appear to be
as worrisome as a big waist with small hips."
The research was based on 24,508 men and women aged 45 to 79 in
the United Kingdom who participated in a European health study.
Researchers measured participants' weight, height, waist
circumference, hip circumference and other heart disease risk
factors from 1993 to 1997. They then followed up with the
participants for an average 9.1 years.
During the follow-up, 1,708 men and 892 women developed coronary
heart disease. When they divided the men and women into five
groups, according to waist-to-hip ratio, researchers found that
those with the highest waist-hip ratio had the highest heart
disease risk.
Men in the top one-fifth of the distribution (those with the
biggest waists in relation to their hips) had a 55 percent higher
risk of developing coronary heart disease compared to men in the
bottom one-fifth of the distribution (those with the smallest
waists in relation to their hips).
Women in the top one-fifth were 91 percent more likely to
develop heart disease than women with the smallest waists in
relation to their hips.
Waist-only measurements underestimated heart disease risk by 10
percent to 18 percent when compared to risk estimates for waist
measurements when hip is considered (waist-to-hip ratio), according
to the study results.
The study's results are definitive for predicting risk in
relatively healthy men and women in the general population, Canoy
said. More research is needed on whether abdominal fat distribution
is an independent risk factor for heart disease among people who
have chronic and other diseases at baseline.
(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2007)