Obesity and covid-19, high risk equation 4:35
(CNN) -
More bad news for America's growing waistline: Excess belly fat is associated with an increased risk of premature death from any cause.
Regardless of how much total body fat you have, a new study found.
In women, each 10-centimeter increase in abdominal fat increased the risk of death from any cause by 8%.
For men, each 10-centimeter increase in girth increased the risk by 12%.
The good news: Larger hips and thighs are associated with a lower risk of premature death, according to the study published by The BMJ on Wednesday.
That may be due to a protective effect that fat in those areas provides towards higher cholesterol and blood sugar levels, according to previous studies.
Those findings are the result of an analysis of 72 studies involving more than 2.5 million participants who were studied for three to 24 years.
All of the studies explored various measures of weight around the middle of the body, which was long thought to be a significant risk factor for metabolic resistance, which is a precursor to diabetes, heart disease, and more.
"Our results suggest that measures of central adiposity could be used as a complementary approach, in combination with body mass index, to determine the risk of premature death," the authors said.
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The role of abdominal fat
Most weight measurements focus on the body mass index or BMI, which takes your weight in kilograms and divides it by the square of your height in meters (there are online tools you can use to calculate your BMI).
If your BMI is less than 18.5, you are considered underweight.
Your weight is considered normal if your BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9.
You are considered overweight when your BMI is between 25 and 29.9;
a BMI over 30 indicates that you are obese.
But critics point out that BMI does not differentiate between lean body mass and fat mass and does not give an indication of where the fat resides.
That's a problem because existing evidence suggests that more fat in the middle, and belly fat often referred to as "beer belly" in men and belly fat in women, are more associated with chronic disease than with a overall obesity rating.
Here's why fat around the waist is so dangerous.
Too much abdominal fat indicates the accumulation of a unique type of fat, called visceral fat, around various internal organs, such as the liver, pancreas, and intestines.
Visceral fat is called 'active fat' because it affects hormonal function by secreting a protein that leads to increased insulin resistance.
This prepares us for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, excess cholesterol, heart disease, some cancers, and Alzheimer's.
Visceral fat is different from the pinch fat we see in our arms, legs, thighs, and love handles on our hips.
This is called subcutaneous fat, which does not affect hormones.
Besides eating too much and exercising too little, why does abdominal fat occur?
Scientists believe that cortisol, the stress hormone, may play a role.
Cortisol increases insulin resistance, which adds to fat stores.
Do you have excess abdominal fat?
To find out if you have potentially dangerous belly fat, take out a soft tape measure.
Then, while standing with a relaxed stomach (no sucking allowed), measure your belly a few inches above your hips.
Are you in danger of having belly fat?
For women, the key figure is believed to be 35 inches or more (89 centimeters) around the stomach, for men it is 101.6 centimeters (102 centimeters).
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What to do?
Doing sit-ups is not going to melt visceral fat.
That will only tone your abs.
However, diet and exercise appear to be better at fighting visceral fat than subcutaneous fat.
You need to make sure you are expending more calories than you consume for that to happen, either by limiting your calorie intake or by exercising more:
Focus on a plant-based diet full of fresh or frozen vegetables and fruits
Choose lean sources of protein and low-fat dairy products
Eat only whole grains, not processed cereals, breads, muffins and the like
Cut back on sugar: avoid processed cakes, cookies, and sugary drinks
Be careful about portion sizes (Tip: use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate)
Add muscle strengthening and weight training to your routine.
Muscle burns more calories than fat.
Begin exercising with moderate aerobic exercise, such as brisk walking, for at least 150 minutes per week or vigorous aerobic activity, such as running, biking, swimming, or team sports, for at least 75 minutes per week .
Tip
:
Use the speech test to check your intensity level, suggests the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Can you speak but not sing?
So you are exercising at a moderate level.
Can't you say more than a few words without stopping to breathe?
You are doing vigorous exercise.
You may not see results on the weight, so experts suggest taking a waist measurement before starting your war on belly fat and measuring periodically to verify.
You can find inches falling from your waist before your hips, and that's a good thing.
Obesity
