Having a big belly isn’t just unattractive. Accumulating excess fat around the waist is also dangerous for health and increases the risk of dying at a younger age, especially from sudden death, according to a new American scientific study. People with a high waist-to-hip ratio (a marker of obesity) are twice as likely to die from sudden death.
If theobesity is a risk factor for early mortality, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol and heart disease, it also appears to be responsible for sudden death. Sudden death occurs without “warning” and is caused by a sudden and unexpected loss of heart function. It is distinguished from heart attacks by its instantaneity and the death that follows.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota (USA) studied the health of 15,000 men and women for 12.5 years.
During this period, they identified 253 sudden cardiac deaths. They put the results of their study into perspective with the weight, height, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio of the volunteers.
The results of the study show that the higher the waist-to-hip ratio, the greater the risk of sudden death.
“The waist-to-hip ratio is a more important marker of obesity than the others. And, the accumulation of fat on the stomach is more dangerous than that stored on other parts of the body. Abdominal fat, which attaches itself below the abdominal muscles, is indeed one of the primary factors responsible for cardiovascular disease, ”recalls Selcuk Adabag, cardiologist, researcher in the epidemiology and health division of the University of Minnesota.
Obesity in numbers
This new study confirms the health dangers of obesity. Yet theobesity would have become the new standard of build. The World Health Organization has warned European governments about the prevalence of obesity in different EU countries. In a report, the WHO says Europeans are getting bigger and bigger: 27% of 13-year-olds and 33% of 11-year-olds are overweight. The number of cases of obesity has doubled since 1980. Overweight affects 1.4 billion people aged 20 and over, of which more than 200 million men and nearly 300 million women are obese.
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