Belly Fat Is Death Fat

Being overweight or obese is an obvious indicator of potential other health problems. But researchers have found that even if your weight seems to be OK, if your fat is concentrated in the belly, it can threaten your life.

According to a research paper from the Mayo Clinic, people with a normal body mass index who have central obesity (a high hip-to-waist ratio) have an increased risk of dying from cardiovascular illness and all other illnesses.

“We knew from previous research that central obesity is bad, but what is new in this research is that the distribution of the fat is very important even in people with a normal weight,” says senior author Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, M.D., a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic. “This group has the highest death rate, even higher than those who are considered obese based on body mass index. From a public health perspective, this is a significant finding.”

The researchers say that the findings are significant because a number of people believe that simply having a normal body mass index, regardless of accumulations of fat around the midsection, means they are healthy. In fact, the risk of cardiovascular death was 2.75 times higher — and the risk of death from all causes was 2.08 times higher — in people of normal weight with central obesity than for those with a normal body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio.

“The high risk of death may be related to a higher visceral fat accumulation in this group, which is associated with insulin resistance and other risk factors, the limited amount of fat located on the hips and legs, which is fat with presumed protective effects, and to the relatively limited amount of muscle mass,” says Karine Sahakyan, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiovascular researcher with the Mayo Clinic.