Prime Health Daily

Measure This Body Part And You’ll Know Your Heart Disease Risk

Want to know your risk of developing heart disease? Here’s a simple trick: Check your waistline.

If you carry more weight around your midsection as opposed to your hips and thighs, known as an apple body shape, you face a higher risk of developing heart disease.


Your gender also matters too: If you’re female with this body shape, you’re more likely to have heart problems.

Research just released in the Journal of the American Heart Association reveals the following:

  • Regardless of gender, having an apple-shaped body raises the risk of heart disease. It also raises the risk of having a heart attack, by as much as 50 percent.
  • Women face a much higher risk due to their body type. For every 0.09 increase in their waist-to-hip ratio, their risk of having a heart attack increased by 50 percent. Conversely, men only faced a 36 percent heightened risk.
  • A higher waist-to-hip ratio in general led to a 10 to 20 percent higher risk of heart disease. This occurred regardless of a person’s body mass index, or BMI. This means that your body fat, and not your weight, ultimately matters here.

So how do you find out if you’re at risk?

Simple: Measure your waist and hip circumference using a soft tape measure. Divide the two numbers to discover the ratio. If it’s above 0.80, your ratio is too high.


Health Offer Sidebar Form