Body Shape May Foretell Heart Disease
Big bellies pose the greatest risk for men and women
 (HealthDay News) -- If you're the type that gains weight in the middle, you may have a greater risk of heart disease.
That's the conclusion of a study that found a correlation between abdominal girth and the likelihood of having arterial calcium deposits in the heart.
"What we're seeing is a quite strong association between the potbelly, apple shape among a relatively young group of people and the build-up of plaque in the arteries," said the study's co-author, Dr. James de Lemos, an assistant professor of medicine and director of the Coronary Care Unit at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas . "Ten to 15 years down the road, this can lead to major cardiac problems, such as a heart attack."
Results of the study were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology .
Obesity has long been known to be a risk factor for heart disease, but recently doctors have been finding that some forms of extra weight can be worse than others.
De Lemos and his colleagues examined data collected on more than 2,700 adults between 30 and 65 years old who were participating in the Dallas Heart Study. Tests that assessed the levels of calcium deposits in the coronary artery found that 20 to 40 percent of the participants had detectable calcium deposits, depending on the test.
After adjusting the data to account for other risk factors, such as age, smoking status, diabetes and cholesterol, the researchers concluded that body shape was more predictive of who would have calcium deposits in their coronary arteries than just weight or body mass index (BMI) measurements alone.
"I wouldn't say this finding is surprising," Dr. Curtis Rimmerman, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic Heart and Vascular Institute in Ohio , told HealthDay . "But it is certainly a reasonable assertion to suggest, given limited health care resources, that health care advisors focus on central-weight distribution rather than weight alone as a more precise way to identify at-risk patients in need of aggressive treatment and follow-up."
Another study, which included nearly 25,000 people from the United Kingdom , found that men with the highest waist circumference in relation to their hip measurement had a 55 percent higher risk of heart disease, and women with a higher waist circumference were 91 percent more likely to develop heart disease than women with smaller waist-to-hip relationship. The findings were published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association .
"The good news for patients is that it's not an all-or-nothing situation," de Lemos said. "Even little improvements in your body shape are going to prove beneficial, with the goal being the smallest waist relative to your hips that you can have -- without becoming anorexic, obviously."
On the Web
To learn more about obesity and its consequences, check out information at the Weight-control Information Network.
SOURCES:
HealthDay News ; James A. de Lemos, M.D., assistant professor of medicine and director, Coronary Care Unit, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas; Curtis M. Rimmerman, M.D., staff cardiologist and Gus P. Karos Endowed Chair in Clinical Cardiovascular Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Heart and Vascular Institute, Cleveland, Ohio; Aug. 21, 2007, Journal of the American College of Cardiology ; American Heart Association (www.americanheart.org)
Author:
Serena Gordon
Publication Date:
Aug. 31, 2008
Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
|
