The latest research on body fat is a real gut check for Americans who battle a big waistline.
A new Mayo Clinic study suggests that being thin but carrying fat around the middle is actually more deadly than being obese — twice as deadly.
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“We’re beginning to learn that fat is not the same,” said Dr. Virend Somers, a Mayo cardiologist and one of the co-authors of the study. “The fat that is really toxic is the fat that’s visceral, the fat that’s inside the abdomen.”
Skinny people take heed — that pudge around the middle could be more deadly than obesity.
The first-of-its-kind study looked at central obesity, commonly referred to as having an apple-shaped body. It calls into question the practice of solely using body mass index to determine whether a person is at risk of health problems or even death.
“Generally we think of people with normal BMIs as being OK, as not being obese,” Somers told LifeZette. “The point of this paper is we need to rethink that.”
So one day your doctor may be pulling out the tape measure along with the scale.
Researchers came to their conclusion by looking at data from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey involving more than 15,000 people.
Using NHANES III is what Somers calls a “man on the street” approach because the survey mirrors the gender, racial and ethnic distribution of people who live in the United States.
So how do you know if you fall into that dangerous central obesity category? If your waist measurement is about the same as your hips, or 90 percent of your hips, that’s a bad sign, Somers said.
But don’t try measuring at home, warned registered dietician Mary Beth Kavanagh.
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“You just can’t grab your measuring tape out of your sewing box and wrap it around your waist,” she told LifeZette. “There’s a specific method for where you measure your waist circumference, and you really can’t do it yourself.”
As senior instructor in the department of nutrition at Case Western Reserve University, Kavanagh has measured a lot of waists and counseled hundreds of people on how to reduce their waistline.
Kavanagh said the Mayo study, while alarming, adds to a mountain of evidence that shows you really have to pay attention to where weight is on your body.
“Exercise would help the most,” she said, but added there are additional paths to slimming your middle.
“(Those would be) not necessarily trying to lose weight, but trying to eat healthier: eating more whole grains, more fruits and vegetables, less processed foods and less alcohol,” she said.
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Somers, the cardiologist, told LifeZette the take-home message for people who have extra fat around the middle is that this study is actually good news.
“If one keeps at it, makes modest, but sustained changes to lifestyle, then there’s really no reason to be discouraged,” he said. “It’s a reason to say, ‘Wow, there’s a method I have for increasing my life span.’”
Somers encourages people to combine cardiovascular exercise with strength training to increase lean muscle mass. He also recommends patience, because it can take years to reduce that kind of fat, depending on how much you have to lose.
The American College of Physicians published the study this past Sunday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
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