2006, Make It The Belly Year
26 Dec 2005
What’s your waist measurement? I’d bet you don’t know. So let’s start 2006 by putting a bit of old-fashioned horse sense back into medicine. As has been aptly said, "keep it simple, stupid (KISS). Moreover, this approach could save your life.
Neither doctors nor patients take the belly seriously. They forget that not all fat is created equal. As with real estate, location, location, location makes you healthy or wealthy. So if it’s increasingly difficult to see your feet, it’s time to get serious about your waistline.
Dr.Salim Yusuf, of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, says the best indicator of heart attack is waist-to-hip ratio(WHR). The best measurement is one in which the waist is smaller than hips. This makes you pear-shaped. Reverse the measurement and you’re apple-shaped, at higher risk of coronary attack.
I like the simplicity of this test. Dr. Yusuf calls WHR the "poor man’s guide" an immediate indication of your risk of heart attack. What a pleasant change from the battery of tests that are ordered today! This one requires no fancy gadgets. No blood samples. No need to be exposed to the radiation which more and more tests require. Rather, all you need is a cheap measuring tape.
To calculate your risk factor measure the diameter of your belly, then the widest point of your hips at the buttocks. Divide your waist measurement by your hip number. The lower the number the better for you.
There’s another advantage to this straight-forward test. It’s more accurate in determining coronary risk than the body mass index. In this case you must divide your weight in kilograms by your height in meters squared. However, most people give up taxing their brain with this mind-boggling exercise long before they know that a BMI of more than 25 is overweight and above 30 is obesity. Thankfully we can now toss aside the calculator.
DR. Yusuf’s study on belly obesity involved 27,000 people in 52 countries of many ethnic back grounds. Of this group 12,500 had had a heart attack. Final results showed that the greater the circumference of the waist in proportion to hips the greater the risk of dying from heart attack.
So what are the figures that should alert us that our waistline is less than perfect? Dr. Jean-Pierre Despres, Professor of Human Nutrition at Laval University in Quebec City, says a waistline of more than 100 centimeters (40 inches) for a man and 90 centimeters (35 inches) for a woman must be considered a risk factor for heart attack.
Now here’s an ironic situation that you may find as amazing as I do. It’s impossible for me to pick up a medical journal without finding a warning about blood cholesterol and the latest drug to reduce it. Day after day doctors across this land are also testing patients for blood cholesterol.
Yet a study conducted by the World Heart Federation revealed that only 14 per cent of doctors measured their patient’s waist circumference. And 54 per cent of physicians never discussed the link between abdominal obesity and heart disease.
According to findings of the World Heart Federation patients were almost as smart as doctors. The poll showed that 30 per cent of patients realized a big belly was a risk factor for heart disease compared to 42 per cent of doctors!
So do you know your own waist measurement? The same poll showed that nine per cent of men and 54 per cent of women had no idea of their waist size.
So are you feeling depressed after getting out the tape and seeing your figure isn’t ideal? Don’t despair. Belly fat cells are larger and metabolically more active than smaller fat cells in the hips. This makes it easier to lose weight around the mid-section.
My advice for 2006 is to get rid of the ticking time-bomb in the belly. Make it the Belly year. This will decrease your risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. And save mega millions for our health care system.
