flatten your belly and save your life

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Flatten Your Belly and Save Your LifeBy Lisa Collier CoolSep 25, 2012

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byLisa Collier Cool

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Did you know that even if your weight is normal, having a big belly is just as

dangerous as smoking?

Thats the scary finding ofa new studyby the Mayo Clinic, which shows that
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normal-weight people with a large waist had nearly triple the risk of dying from

cardiovascular causes, such as a heart attack or stroke.

The study, presented to the European Society of Cardiology, looked at the body

mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, and death rates of close to 13,000 adults over the

course of 14 years.

7 Warning Signs of Heart Attack

A big belly is more deadly than obesity

"We knew from previous research that central obesity is bad, but what is new in

this research is that the distribution of the fat is very important even in people

with a normal weight," reported study author Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, M.D., a

cardiologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

"This group has the highest death rate, even higher than those who are

considered obese based on body mass index. From a public health perspective,

this is a significant finding."

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Where you store fat is more important than what youweigh

The researchers reported that people with a normal BMI (body mass index) but a

high waist-to-hip ratio had the highest rate of cardiovascular mortality, even after

excluding people with histories of stroke, heart failure, coronary artery disease,

and other chronic diseases.

In fact, the risk of cardiovascular death was 2.75 times higher for those with highlevels of belly fat and normal weight than that of people who had normal waist-to-

hip ratios and were not overweight.

Surprisingly, those who were obese but did not have an excessive amount of

belly fat only had a 1.07 percent greater risk, while people who were both obese
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and had a high waist-to-hip ratio had 2.34- fold increase in cardiovascular

mortality.

Why is belly fat so lethal?

Visceral fatthe kind that builds up around the abdominal organs--is

metabolically different from fat elsewhere in the body. Its more likely to trigger

chronic inflammation, which has been shown to actually causeheart disease.

Abdominal fat is associated with insulin resistance (IR) and other risk factors,

Dr. Karine Sahayakan from the Mayo Clinic statedin a press release.Not only is

IR the root cause of type 2 diabetes, but it also increases risk for heart attack,

stroke, and even dementia.

In addition, excessive belly fat also places you at a higher risk of high blood

cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, metabolic syndrome, and

coronary artery disease,according to the CDC.

Are you at risk?

Women with a waist measurement about 35 inches and men with waists

measuring over 40 inches may be at an increased risk for obesity-related

diseases, according to the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney

Diseases, the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and

Blood Institute.

As far as waist-to-hip ratio, WHO states that men with a waist-hip ratio of 90 or

higher for men or 85 or higher for women also have a substantial increased risk

for cardiovascular disease and other disorders.

To calculate your waist-to-hip ratio, divide your waist measurement by your hip

measurement.As Ive reported previously,a new obesity measure called A Body

Shape Index, has been shown to accurately predict lifespans by factoring both

body mass index and waist circumference.

Whats the best way to banish belly fat?
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Although adding sit-ups into your workout seems like an obvious solution, they

wont necessarily have the effect youre looking for. Sit-ups help make your

abdominal muscles stronger, but spot exercises alone wont specifically reduce

your belly fat, according to theMayo Clinic.

Diet and exercise are the way to go, and high-intensity training such as sprinting

has been shown to be especially effective.A new 12-week studypublished in the

Journal of Obesityshowed that sprinting for only an hour a week was more

effective at reducing body fat than seven hours of jogging.

The men participating in the study lost 17 percent of their visceral fat and lost

about 4.5 pounds of fat overall, while gaining 2.5 pounds of muscle in their legs

and trunk.

Other studies using aerobic exercise, such as continuous jogging, have found

that the amount of exercise needed to produce a similar decrease in visceral fat

was around seven hours per week for 14 weeks, study leader Steve Boutcher

told Medical Daily.

But while high-intensity exercise was more effective than aerobic activity, aerobicactivityhad better resultsthan weight training, according to a study at Duke

University Medical Center. That study looked at close to 200 overweight adults,and showed that aerobic exercise torched significantly more calories thanresistance training alone.
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