Posted: 22:38, August 28, 2022 | Updated: 01:12, 29 August 2022
Carrying a few extra pounds around your waist isn’t just a sign that you may need to cut back on calories and get more exercise. Excess belly fat is also a warning sign that you have a higher risk of heart failure, according to a study. Researchers from the University of Oxford said that every extra centimeter around the waist increases the threat by 11 per cent and is a greater risk to heart health than overall weight. The academics analyzed data on 430,000 Britons aged 40 to 70, who were followed for an average of 13 years. Each extra inch in a healthy waist size was linked to a higher risk of a heart event, such as a heart attack, stroke or irregular rhythm. Carrying a few extra pounds around your waist isn’t just a sign that you may need to cut back on calories and get more exercise The fifth of those with the largest waist was 3.21 times more likely to suffer than the fifth with the thinnest waist. But those with the highest body mass index (BMI), which takes weight and height into account, were only 2.65 times more likely to suffer than those with the lowest. Each additional BMI unit increased the odds of heart failure by 9 percent. There were 8,669 first cases of heart failure during the study, with many resulting in death.
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A ground-breaking implant that collects data and alerts doctors to worsening health has cut hospital admissions for heart patients by more than half, a conference has found. Research in Manchester showed that the TriageHF Plus alert system flagged potential problems to enable early treatment. Lead researcher Dr Ayodipupo Oguntade advised measuring yourself annually to monitor your risk. “The amount of fat people carry around their torso is most important for monitoring body fat and cardiovascular risk,” he said. “We know that the fat around the organs in the abdomen is very active and contains many inflammatory factors that can cause cardiovascular disease.” Two in three Britons are overweight or obese, and heart and circulatory disease causes a quarter of all deaths in the UK, taking almost 500 lives a day. Heart failure is a long-term condition when it can’t pump blood around the body and causes shortness of breath and other symptoms. It results in 100,000 hospital admissions a year in the UK. Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum said that if a piece of tape that’s half your height fits comfortably around your waist, that’s a “healthy” weight range. The findings were presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Researchers from the University of Oxford (pictured) said every extra inch around the waist increased the threat by 11 per cent and was a greater risk to heart health than total weight
