Everyone's Health

How long will you live, Ask your waist and hips

Having a high body-mass index increases the risk of disease. But in people over 75, the proportion of height-to-weight appears to be less important than the waist-to-hip ratio as a predictor of mortality, British researchers report.

They recorded the height, weight, waist and hip measurements of 15,000 people over 75 and then followed for six years.

After adjusting for other factors, they found that a high body-mass index, or BMI, was not associated with death. In fact, men with a BMI below 23 and women below 22.3 were the most likely to die.

In the older group, a high waist-to-hip ratio – waist measurement divided by hip measurement – was a more accurate predictor of disease risk. Those with the highest waist-to-hip ratio (closer to 1) were 40 percent more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than those with the lowest (about 0.8). The study was in the August 2006 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

GOING TO WAIST

Your waist-to-hip ratio may help determine your risk of heart disease, a Canadian study in Lancet reports. Just measure your waist and hips with a tape measure, then divide your waist by your hips. More than 0.9 for men and 0.85 for women indicates above-average risk; above 1.0 for men and .95 for women means high risk. Just measuring your waist is helpful: High risk is more than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women.

Prior | Tell us what you think | Next

Add to Your Social Bookmarks: Del.icio.us Digg Furl Reddit Simpy Spurl Y! MyWeb - StumbleUpon