A new US study by the Kaiser Permanente health charity has revealed that increased waist size raises the risk of heart attack.
Doctors conducting the 12-year study of over 100,000 men and women say that waist size is strongly linked to cardiac health, and that people with the biggest bellies are more than 40 per cent more likely to suffer from hardening of the arteries, angina and heart attacks than others.
The study shows that people at the greatest risk of suffering heart attacks are those who have developed a beer gut in their young age.
"I think this has important implications for prevention. Don't let this happen to you when you're young, that's the message," the Telegraph quoted Dr Carlos Iribarren, a researcher, as saying.
The study also showed that waistline may be a better measure of health than the Body Mass Index measurement, as a gauge of weight in relation to height does not discriminate between fat and muscles, and that is why muscular people may be misconstrued to be unfit.
During the course of study, the researchers found that amongst people having the same BMI, those with the biggest waists were at greatest risk of heart disease.
Overall, men with the largest waists were 42 per cent more likely to develop heart disease, while the risk was even higher at 44 per cent for women.
"The message is really obesity in the abdomen matters even more than obesity overall," the researchers concluded.
The study was published in the American Journal of Public Health.
ANI