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It’s about Fat, Not Weight

A new study tells us you can be normal weight, but still at high risk, depending on where you carry your weight. Women at highest risk carry more fat around their organs. From BBC Health News:

A test has been designed which can show if people of normal weight are at an increased risk of heart disease because they are carrying “hidden” fat.
Developed by South Korean researchers, it checks blood-flow via a cuff on the ankle or arm.

Professor Paul Stewart, an obesity specialist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, said: “The take-home message of this study is that having more fat around your the belly area puts you at increased risk of heart disease.

“it’s not so much about general obesity; it’s about middle-aged spread and where fat lies that’s the problem. . . . .

Writing in Clinical Endocrinology, the team say those with the poorest blood flow had more fat around their organs, and so were most at risk.

“This is one more test that can indicate risk.”

Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: “This study confirms what we have known for some time; good heart health seems to depend more on our shape than our weight. ”

”Visceral’ fat inside our abdominal cavity – surrounding our intestines – increases our heart disease risk more than fatness in other parts of our body. “It’s possible in future that measures of waist circumference will be included to refine the heart disease risk assessment.

Read the entire article Here.

May 1, 2007 - Posted by | Diet / Weight Loss, Health Issues, Women's Issues

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