Weight gain is hard on the ego, but it’s even harder on your heart–especially when that weight is centered around your middle.
Fat is dangerous to the heart, and not only because it increases the risk for conditions that contribute to heart disease, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. The fat located in your abdomen–called visceral fat–lies deep enough to surround your organs and disrupt their function.
“The fat around the belly is particularly metabolically active, meaning that it produces a number of factors that increase the risks for heart disease,” explains Dr. Paula Johnson, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Those factors include hormones and other substances that promote inflammation, raise blood pressure, alter cholesterol levels, and interfere with normal blood vessel activity.
For older women, the risks of belly fat are particularly troubling, because the lack of estrogen after menopause changes the way fat distributes. Many of us transition from a pear shape (curvier hips and thighs) to an apple shape, which means more fat accumulates around our middle.
WAIST SIZE AND HEART RISKS
A tape measure is one of the most important diagnostic tools your doctor will use, because it could provide an early warning that you’re headed for heart disease. Increased waist circumference–an indicator of abdominal fat–is part of a cluster of heart disease risks called metabolic syndrome.
They include:
1. Waist measurement of 35 inches or more
2. Triglyceride (blood fat) level of 150 mg/dL or higher
3. HDL (“good”) cholesterol level of less than 50 mg/dL
4. Blood pressure reading of 130/85 mm Hg or higher
5. Fasting blood sugar level of 100 mg/dL or higher.
“If you have three of these risk factors, then you have metabolic syndrome. A waist circumference measurement can give you a really good idea of whether or not someone will meet the criteria for metabolic syndrome,” Dr. Johnson says.
– Harvard Health Letters
(C) 2012. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
