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Risks of belly fat: diabetes, heart disease

Belly fat is dangerous. Even a small pot belly is linked to increased risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. A waist mesurement above 32 inches in women and and above 37 inches in men indicates a significantly raised risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Whatever your age and total weight, you must aim to have a flat stomach. You achieve this via diet and exercise. A pot belly exposes you to greatly increased risks of diabetes and heart disease. It's also unsightly. No one wants a big gut.

A report (Visceral Fat and the Weight Debate) from GlaxoSmithKline, which makes the weight loss drug Alli, shows how a large waist is indicative of dangerous visceral fat around internal organs.

Visceral fat plays an important part in the release of proteins and hormones that cause inflammation and are responsible for thickening and hardening of arteries. They also enter the liver and affect how the body breaks down sugars and fats.

The report, which surveyed 12,000 Europeans, pointed out that when weight is lost, visceral fat is more easily broken down for energy than the fat immediately under the skin.

Waist circumference is a good indicator of visceral fat and therefore of a person's risk of diseases associated with overweight.

Waist size

Research from the University of Texas, based on a study of 2,744 people and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, says that a waist size of 32ins (81cm) for a woman and 37ins (94cm) for a man represents a significant raised risk of heart disease.

Diabetes UK uses similar figures, advising that waist measurements above 31.5 inches in women (80 cm), above 37 inches (94 cm) in white men and black men, and above 35 inches (90 cm) in South Asian men significantly increases the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

The risks are even higher with waist measurements over 35 inches in women and above 40 inches in men.

Waist to hip ratio

Waist-to-hip ratio is a reliable indicator of health risks associated with overweight, and is today favored over Body Mass Index (BMI).

To find your waist-to-hip ratio, first measure your waist, then your hips and divide the first number by the second.

For men, a healthy ratio is under 0.95 (In other words, your stomach measurement should be less than your hips). For women the healthy ratio is under 0.85.

How to measure

To get an accurate measurement, you measure the mid-point of your waist, around your navel. Then measure the widest point of your hips around your backside.

BMI, which is is calculated by dividing your weight in kilos (kg) by your height in meters squared can give misleading results. Athletic and muscular people can appear overweight using BMI.

Body Mass Index

A BMI under 18.5 indicates underweight; 18.5 to 24.9 is considered normal weight; 25 to 29.9 is overweight; and above 30 is obese.

For example, using height in feet and weight in pounds, a man of 5 ft 10 inches who weights 165 lbs has a BMI of 23.7 and is within the normal range. A man who is 6 ft 2 inches and weighs 245 lbs is within the obese range. (Go here for an online Body Mass Index calculator.)

BMI overestimates body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build, and it can underestimate body fat in older persons and others who have lost muscle mass.

Waist-to-hip ratio tells us that body shape is as important, if not more important, than total weight as an indicator of weight-related health risks than total body weight.

Body image

The GlaxoSmithKline report says most overweight people see themselves as having a body image issue not a health problem: They need to understand the health benefits of weight loss as well as its cosmetic, or body image, results.

The report's co-author Professor David Haslam, chair of the UK National Obesity Forum, advises that steady sustainable weight loss is important and that crash diets are unlikely to be successful.

Crash diets can do more harm than good, he says.

Invariably weight is put back on, with some of the weight regained accumulating as visceral fat.

Professor Steve Field, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said most of the media focus in recent years had been on total weight.

Belly fat

But it is the weight around your belly which really does the harm.

A lot of these things take a while to get into people's heads especially as there has been so much focus on weight and body mass index.

Professor James de Lemos, who led the University of Texas research, says: We think the key message for people is to prevent accumulation of central fat early on in their lives. Even a small pot belly puts us at higher risk when compared to a flat tummy.

By David Hay Jones, a runner and web entrepreneur

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