Hormonal
Waist circumference (WC) is a stronger predictor of type 2 diabetes risk than body mass index (BMI), and WC identifies cardiometabolic risk in individuals with normal BMI who would otherwise be missed by BMI-based screening.
Ask your doctor to measure your waist circumference. If you are a man, a measurement over 40 inches (102 cm) or a woman over 35 inches (88 cm) indicates higher risk for heart disease and diabetes, even if your weight (BMI) is normal. This measurement helps catch risks that standard weight checks miss.
The relationship between WC and clinical outcome is consistently strong for diabetes risk, and WC is a stronger predictor of diabetes than is BMI... Data from many large population studies have found WC to be a strong correlate of clinical outcome, particularly diabetes, and to be independent of BMI.
Why this rating
Based on large epidemiological studies and consensus of expert panels, though causality of specific mechanisms is complex.
Source
Waist Circumference and Cardiometabolic Risk: A Consensus Statement from Shaping America's Health: Association for Weight Management and Obesity Prevention; NAASO, The Obesity Society; the American Society for Nutrition; and the American Diabetes Association
Samuel Klein et al. · Obesity · 2007
DOI 10.1038/oby.2007.632
More from this paper
- Waist circumference is a valid surrogate marker for abdominal fat mass (both subcutaneous and intra-abdominal) and correlates strongly with cardiometabolic disease risk, though it does not distinguish between the two fat types.Good
- Reducing waist circumference through diet and exercise improves cardiometabolic risk factors, but the reduction in WC itself may not be the direct cause of the benefit; rather, it reflects broader metabolic improvements.Moderate
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