Belly Fat Can Increase Stroke Risk

Excess belly fat is serious business. It isn't just an idle bystander-it is an active organ in your body-one that produces inflammatory substances and triggers changes in hormones, causing a chain reaction that putts us at an increased risk for many health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and early death. It may also predispose us to an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. And, most recently, that extra weight around the middle has been linked to a significant increase in the risk for stroke.

A new study by researchers from the University of Heidelberg looked at the stroke risk of people who were obese or overweight compared to those of normal weight. Among the 1,137 German adults in the study, 379 were stroke patients (141 women and 238 men) with an average age of 67. Of this group, 301 had suffered a full stroke, 37 had bleeding in the brain, and 41 had experienced what is commonly called a "mini-stroke" or transient ischemic attack (TIA). The remaining 758 comprised a control group matched for age, sex, and place of residence.

The researchers used certain guidelines to measure obesity; waist-hip ratio (WHR), the waist circumference divided by hip circumference, and body mass index (BMI), which is body weight in kilograms divided by height in meters. An abnormal WHR for women is anything greater than or equal to 0.85 and 1.0 for men. A BMI of 30 or more is considered obese.

They found that obesity was more common in the members of the stroke group, affecting 30 percent. However, waist measurements were much stronger predictors of stroke and TIA than BMI. Participants with WHR greater than 40.2 inches for men and 34.6 inches for women were four times more likely to have a stroke than those with normal waistlines. Those with the highest WHR had 7.6 times the risk of stroke, compared to people with the lowest waist-to-hip ratios. "While gaining too much weight can present health risks, it's even more dangerous to have the abdominal type of obesity. People should measure their waistline from time to time and avoid the accumulation of abdominal fat," study senior author Tobias Back, M.D., at Saxon Hospital Arnsdorf, said in an American Heart Association news release.

Dr. Back suggests that doctors "measure patients' waistlines and use the waist-to-hip ratio to estimate stroke risk." He also emphasized doing things we know contribute to good health, such as exercise and proper diet. "Physical activity was much more common in the controls than in the stroke and TIA patients," he said. "A Mediterranean diet containing fish and olive oil can lower your risk of coronary heart disease and possibly also lower stroke risk."