A large waistline can double the risk of premature death even in people who are not ‘officially’ overweight, an alarming study has found.

Researchers concluded that waist measurement is a much better indicator of a person’s lifespan than the traditional ‘body mass index’ score used by the Government.

This divides people into obese, overweight and normal weight.

The disclosure means doctors could be missing vital chances to save people’s lives because they are looking at the wrong measurements.

The study, which involved more than 350,000 people from nine European countries, found that even those judged to be a healthy weight under the BMI could be at risk of heart attack or stroke if they had too much waistline fat.

It found that every inch added on the waist increases a man’s chance of dying early by 9 per cent and women’s by 7 per cent, no matter how thin the person is in the first place.

The research found that among people with similar BMIs, people with large waists had roughly double the risk of a premature death as those whose waists were defined as small.

A large waist was defined as 47 inches in men and 39 inches in women, while a small waist was 32 and 26 inches in men and women respectively.

In Britain, the average waist size is 38 inches in men and 33.5 inches in women.

Professor Edlio Riboli of London’s Imperial College, and coordinator of the study, said: ‘Although smaller studies have suggested a link between mortality and waist size, we were surprised to see the waist size having such a powerful effect on people’s health and premature death.

‘Our study shows that accumulating excess fat around your middle can put your health at risk even if your weight is normal based on BMI scores. There aren’t many simple individual characteristics that can increase a person’s risk of premature death to this extent, independently from smoking and drinking.’

Doctors have traditionally used the BMI, a measurement of the ratio between a person’s height and weight, to test a person’s risk of health complications.

A BMI of between 18.5 and 25 indicates that someone has a healthy weight. If their score is above 25 they are overweight, and if they are above 30 they are obese.

In Britain, the average person is now overweight according to the BMI, with an average score of 25.4.

But the BMI has come in for criticism because a super-fit athlete can come out as overweight or obese even though their high weight is accounted for by muscle and not fat.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also found that measuring the ratio between the sizes of the waist and the hip is a better measure of health than the BMI.

Lower waist-hip ratios indicate the waist is comparatively small in relation to the hips.

In Europe, this ratio ranges from 0.78 to 1.1 in men and from 0.66 to 0.98 in women.

But each 0.1 increase in the ratio equates to a 34 per cent higher mortality risk of early death in men, and 24 per cent in women.

To measure the waist, doctors suggest people should measure around their body around four centimetres (1.5 inches) above their belly button.

Professor Riboli said: ‘The good news is that you don’t need to take an expensive test and wait ages for the result to assess this aspect of your health – it costs virtually nothing to measure your waist and hip size.

‘Doctors and nurses can easily identify people who need to take certain steps to improve their health by routinely monitoring these measurements.

‘If you have a large waist, you probably need to increase the amount of exercise you do every day, avoid excessive alcohol consumption and improve your diet. This could make a huge difference in reducing your risk of an early death.’

The participants in the study, aged 25 to 70, were monitored for an average of 10 years. During this time, a total of 14,723 died.

The study authors said sedentary lifestyles, poor diet and genetic predisposition caused the expansion of the waistline.

Dr Tobias Pischon, lead author of the paper from the German Institute of Human Nutrition, said: ‘The most important result of our study is the finding that not just being overweight, but also the distribution of body fat, affects the risk of premature death of each individual.

‘Abdominal fat is not only a mere energy depot, but it also releases messenger substances that can contribute to the development of chronic diseases. This may be the reason for the link.’

Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum said: ‘This underlines the fact that waist measurement is what doctors should be using with their patients, rather than the BMI. The BMI should really only be used with children.

‘But people need to know where their waist is – if you go up and down each time you’re not comparing like with like. They need to measure about 4cm up from their belly button.’

On Tuesday another study showed the arteries of obese children were as bad as would be expected in people aged 45 – meaning that they should be treated as being at the same risk of heart attack as middle-aged people.

Source: dailymail

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Within a few days you should have begun to develop up a picture of what kind of foods you need to avoid so that your tummy stays flat. Elimination diets can be rather boring and difficult to stick to however the results can be quite dramatic so go ahead and give it a try. You’ll be glad you did.  Visit The Health – Fitness & Nutrition Store

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