What having a beer belly really says about your health

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Especially in men, having a “beer belly” is more likely to cause heart damage than having fat anywhere else on the body.

That’s according to a study that found that abdominal obesity, or belly fat, is more associated with harmful changes in heart structure than total body weight alone.

The findings, presented this week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), explained that belly fat may cause the heart to pump less blood, leading to heart failure.

Study author Jennifer Erley, a radiology resident at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, said: “It appears to lead to a potentially pathological form of cardiac remodeling, concentric hypertrophy, in which the heart muscle thickens but the overall size of the heart does not increase, leading to reduced heart volumes.

“In effect, the internal chambers become smaller, so the heart holds and pumps less blood. This impairs the heart’s ability to relax properly, which can eventually lead to heart failure.”

Study finds that having fat in the abdominal area is more likely to cause heart damage than having fat anywhere else on the body (Alamy/PA)

Researchers used data from an ongoing long-term population study in Germany and examined cardiovascular MRI images of 2,244 adults ages 46 to 78 without cardiovascular disease.

To calculate abdominal obesity, they took into account BMI, a measure of overall obesity calculated from participants’ weight and height, and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), a measure of waist circumference.

According to BMI, 69 percent of men and 56 percent of women surveyed were overweight or obese. 91 percent of men and 64 percent of women using the WHR met the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria for obesity.

They found that BMI was associated with more enlarged heart chambers, and abdominal obesity was associated with thickening of the heart muscle and smaller heart chamber volumes.

But the study authors found that changes in heart structure were more pronounced in men, even after accounting for risk factors such as arterial hypertension, smoking, diabetes and cholesterol.

It is known that excess weight, especially around the waist, increases the risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes by causing the accumulation of fatty substances in the arteries and major organs.

Damage and blockage of the arteries that carry blood to your heart can lead to a heart attack. The British Heart Foundation explains that if this occurs in the arteries that carry blood to your brain, it can lead to stroke or vascular dementia.

However, men are more likely than women to store fat only in the abdominal area, putting them at greater risk.

Naveed Sattar, professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow, said: Independent: “Men shed fat into their bellies faster than women, which means men have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and heart failure than women.

“Women have a better fat storage capacity in their skin, arms and legs, and the fat is locked there. However, when you start placing fat on the abdomen, you also store fat in organs that should not be there, such as the liver, muscle, pancreas and heart. Therefore, the weight buffering capacity of men is not as good as women.”

Dr Erley concluded that rather than focusing on reducing overall weight, middle-aged adults should focus on preventing the accumulation of abdominal fat through regular exercise, a balanced diet and, if necessary, medical intervention.