'Body Roundness' Could be a Better Indicator of Obesity-Related Heart Disease
New Insights on Body Roundness and Heart Disease
The Body Roundness Index (BRI) can help predict heart problems. People who developed a high BRI were 163% more likely to suffer heart health problems. BRI compares waist circumference to height.
THURSDAY, Sept. 26, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- “Body roundness” could be a better measure than BMI at predicting how excess weight might affect a person’s heart health, a new study finds. People who developed a high Body Roundness Index during a six-year period had a 163% increased risk of heart disease, researchers found, and even a moderate BRI was linked with a 61% increased risk.
According to senior investigator Dr. Yun Qian, a researcher of chronic non-communicable disease control, “Our findings indicate that six years of moderate-to-high stable BRI appeared to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, suggesting that BRI measurements may potentially be used as a predictive factor for cardiovascular disease incidence.”
Understanding the Body Roundness Index
The Body Roundness Index (BRI) compares a person’s waist circumference to their height, providing an estimate of their excess abdominal fat. By comparison, body-mass index only compares a person’s weight to their height. Some have criticized the BMI as an inaccurate measure of obesity – for example, very fit athletes can have a high BMI due to their heavy muscle mass. For the study, researchers tracked the BRI of nearly 10,000 adults in China who were 45 and older during the 2010s.
BRI reflects not just a person’s belly fat, but also their amount of visceral fat – the fat packed in around the organs that’s thought to do the most damage related to excess weight, experts said. Researchers analyzed how people’s BRI changed over time, and found that increasing and higher BRI was significantly associated with a risk of heart disease, stroke, heart attack, and other heart-related diseases. This risk persisted even after researchers accounted for other risks associated with heart health like blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels.
“Obesity has also been shown to lead to inflammation and other mechanisms in the body that can affect the heart and cardiac functioning,” Qian said. The new study was published Sept. 25 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
People worried about their weight should ask their doctor about whether their body roundness indicates overweight or obesity.
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