Multiple Heart Attack Risk: Your Waist Size Matters More Than The Number On Your Weighing Scale

Every 40 seconds, someone has a heart attack in the United States and about 805,000 Americans suffer from a heart attack every year. Age, hypertension, high blood cholesterol levels, diabetes and obesity are some major risk factors of a heart attack.

However, a new study reported that heart attack survivors carrying extra weight around the belly are at a higher risk for a second attack. This highlights that waist circumference is more significant compared to a person’s body weight when it comes to heart attack risk. Previous studies stressed on abdominal obesity as an important risk factor for a first heart attack.

“Patients are typically put on a stringent medical treatment regimen after their first attack to prevent second events (called secondary prevention),” the European Society of Cardiology quoted the study’s author Dr. Hanieh Mohammadi of the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. “Secondary prevention works through reducing risk factors associated with a heart attack and strokes such as high blood sugar, lipids, and blood pressure. It was previously unknown whether abdominal obesity is a risk factor for recurrent events among patients on secondary prevention treatments,” he went on.

The researchers followed more than 22,000 heart attack survivors and investigated the relationship between abdominal obesity measured by waist circumference and their risk of recurrent cardiovascular disease events. They concentrated on CVD events including clogged arteries such as stroke, fatal and non-fatal heart attacks. Most of them had a waist circumference of 94cm and above for men and 80 cm and above for women.

The findings of the study reported that increasing abdominal obesity was independently linked to fatal as well as non-fatal heart attacks and strokes, regardless of several other factors including diabetes, smoking, blood pressure, blood cholesterol levels, and BMI. The findings highlight the fact that waist circumference was a very important marker of recurrent CVD events compared to overall obesity.

The researchers recommended using waist circumference in clinical settings to identify heart attack survivors who might be at a higher risk of recurrent CVD events.

Abdominal obesity can be tackled by consuming a well-balanced diet and indulging in regular physical activity.