Re: Fat Abdomen/Fat Hips

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

Yes,Rodney.

See the pdf-available below.

Cheers, Al Pater.

Janssen I, Katzmarzyk PT, Ross R.

Waist circumference and not body mass index explains obesity-related

health

risk.

Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Mar;79(3):379-84.

PMID: 14985210 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

--- In , " Rodney " <perspect1111@y...>

wrote:

> Hi folks:

>

> From Dr. Mirkin:

>

> Interesting if accurate. Which I assume it is.

>

> " Dear Dr. Mirkin: Why is it worse to have a fat stomach than fat

> hips?

>

> A new study from Queen's University in Canada confirms that

> storing fat primarily in your belly, rather than your hips,

increases

> your chances of suffering heart attacks and diabetes (American

> Journal of Clinical Nutrition, March 2004). When you take in

> more calories than your body needs, your liver turns them into

> fat. People who store fat primarily in their bellies are called

> " apples, " while those who store fat primarily in their hips are

> called " pears. " Fat cells in your belly are different from those

in

> your hips. The blood that flows from belly fat goes directly to

your

> liver, whereas the blood that flows from your hips goes into your

> general circulation. The livers of those who store fat in their

> bellies are blocked from removing insulin by the extra fat and

> therefore do not remove insulin from the bloodstream as effectively

> as the livers of those who store fat in their hips and have less

fat

> in their livers. So " apples " have higher blood insulin and sugar

> levels.

> You need insulin to drive sugar from your bloodstream

> into your cells, but insulin is also a harmful hormone because it

> lowers blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol that prevents

> heart attacks and raises blood levels of the bad triglycerides that

> cause heart attacks. Being shaped like an apple and having a

> beer belly increases your risk for a heart attack and diabetes.

> People who store fat primarily in their hips and are shaped like

> pears are less likely to have heart attacks. "

>

> Rodney.

[Guest guest]

Hi Al:

Thanks for that reference. And now I think about it, I can see the

sense in it. The problems we recognize with BMI are that muscular or

heavy-boned people may appear to have an excessively high BMI. But

there is no good reason why such people would be expected to have

elevated health risks of the type associated with obesity.

But then heavy-boned or muscular people, while having a high BMI,

will not have a materially higher waist circumference, in comparison

with those who have a high BMI because of excess fat tissue. So it

makes a lot of sense that some measure of circumference (waist?

abdomen?) would be better correlated with obesity-type health

problems than BMI.

Quite funny really. Everyone these days is supposed to go to the

trouble of converting their data for height and weight to metric, and

then remember which is to be squared, and which of them is supposed

to be the numerator and which the denominator, then find a calculator

and do the calculation. Whereas they could, instead, get a superior

indication of what they want to know in a couple of seconds by just

taking one simple measurement with a tape measure - no calculations!

Rodney.

> > Hi folks:

> >

> > From Dr. Mirkin:

> >

> > Interesting if accurate. Which I assume it is.

> >

> > " Dear Dr. Mirkin: Why is it worse to have a fat stomach than fat

> > hips?

> >

> > A new study from Queen's University in Canada confirms that

> > storing fat primarily in your belly, rather than your hips,

> increases

> > your chances of suffering heart attacks and diabetes (American

> > Journal of Clinical Nutrition, March 2004). When you take in

> > more calories than your body needs, your liver turns them into

> > fat. People who store fat primarily in their bellies are called

> > " apples, " while those who store fat primarily in their hips are

> > called " pears. " Fat cells in your belly are different from those

> in

> > your hips. The blood that flows from belly fat goes directly to

> your

> > liver, whereas the blood that flows from your hips goes into your

> > general circulation. The livers of those who store fat in their

> > bellies are blocked from removing insulin by the extra fat and

> > therefore do not remove insulin from the bloodstream as

effectively

> > as the livers of those who store fat in their hips and have less

> fat

> > in their livers. So " apples " have higher blood insulin and sugar

> > levels.

> > You need insulin to drive sugar from your bloodstream

> > into your cells, but insulin is also a harmful hormone because it

> > lowers blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol that prevents

> > heart attacks and raises blood levels of the bad triglycerides

that

> > cause heart attacks. Being shaped like an apple and having a

> > beer belly increases your risk for a heart attack and diabetes.

> > People who store fat primarily in their hips and are shaped like

> > pears are less likely to have heart attacks. "

> >

> > Rodney.

[Guest guest]

But recognize that "belly" fat is maybe visceral as well as adipose. I'm not sure if it's saying the adipose fat on the belly is diff from the adipose fat on the hips.

The visceral seems to come out easily. Not so the adipose.

I got the waist down to 38.5" but I'm stumped how to get that 5# slab on the surface off.

Regards.

----- Original Message -----

From: old542000

Sent: Friday, June 25, 2004 9:01 PM

Subject: [ ] Re: Fat Abdomen/Fat Hips

Hi All,Yes,Rodney.See the pdf-available below.Cheers, Al Pater.Janssen I, Katzmarzyk PT, Ross R. Waist circumference and not body mass index explains obesity-related healthrisk.Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Mar;79(3):379-84. PMID: 14985210 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]> Hi folks:> > From Dr. Mirkin:> > Interesting if accurate. Which I assume it is.> > "Dear Dr. Mirkin: Why is it worse to have a fat stomach than fat > hips?> > A new study from Queen's University in Canada confirms that > storing fat primarily in your belly, rather than your hips, increases > your chances of suffering heart attacks and diabetes (American > Journal of Clinical Nutrition, March 2004). When you take in > more calories than your body needs, your liver turns them into > fat. People who store fat primarily in their bellies are called > "apples," while those who store fat primarily in their hips are > called "pears." Fat cells in your belly are different from those in > your hips. The blood that flows from belly fat goes directly to your > liver, whereas the blood that flows from your hips goes into your > general circulation. The livers of those who store fat in their > bellies are blocked from removing insulin by the extra fat and > therefore do not remove insulin from the bloodstream as effectively > as the livers of those who store fat in their hips and have less fat > in their livers. So "apples" have higher blood insulin and sugar > levels. > You need insulin to drive sugar from your bloodstream > into your cells, but insulin is also a harmful hormone because it > lowers blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol that prevents > heart attacks and raises blood levels of the bad triglycerides that > cause heart attacks. Being shaped like an apple and having a > beer belly increases your risk for a heart attack and diabetes. > People who store fat primarily in their hips and are shaped like > pears are less likely to have heart attacks."> > Rodney.

[Guest guest]

Yes Al the 'apple/pear' comparison has been around for quite

some time as I recall.

Here's a quote from this weeks 'Forbes Magazine' about heart

attacks and cholesterol.

Home > Magazines > Forbes Global

Ê

Attacking Heart Attacks

Langreth, 06.21.04

Heart disease kills an estimated 17 million people a year

worldwide. Scientists are designing a new arsenal of weapons

that could conquer this killer in our lifetime.

By the Numbers

Critical Care

Heart disease wreaks a devastating toll.

Ê

13,200,000 Americans have heart disease.

865,000 Americans suffer heart attacks each year.

696,000 Die from heart disease.

$133.2 billion Annual cost of treating heart disease.

28.5% Of adults have high cholesterol.

26.7% Have high blood pressure.

Sources: American Heart Association; Centers for Disease

Control.In his own small way an icelandic former carpenter

named Asgeir Arnason has contributed to a startling turn in the

medical assault on heart disease. For decades doctors and

scientists obsessed over one key factor in heart attacks--high

cholesterol--and devised drugs to treat it. But in recent years

their understanding of heart disease has shifted to focus on an

entirely new front: inflammation of the arteries. Arnason, age 48,

helped. As early as age 22 he complained of stabbing chest

pains; in 1992, at age 36, he survived a massive heart attack. He

spent seven years recovering, and in that time his mother, a

sister and a first cousin also had heart attacks; the cousin's was

fatal.

Convinced something more than high cholesterol was at work,

Arnason and his father gave blood samples in 2000 to DeCode

Genetics, a biotech firm in Reykjavik that uses Iceland's isolated

population to search for disease-causing genes. DeCode

researchers spent four years analyzing the DNA of the Arnasons

and thousands of other Icelandic heart patients, unearthing a

couple of key suspects:two gene variants, previously thought to

be involved in asthma, that nearly double the risk of heart attack

by boosting levels of a molecule that promotes inflammation of

the artery walls. On the basis of this discovery,DeCode recently

began human trials of an old asthma drug that counteracts the

bad genes, hoping this will slash heart attack risk. Boasts

DeCode founder and Chief Kari Stefansson: " If this holds up, it

could match the importance of the discovery that high cholesterol

predisposes [one] to heart attacks. "

" There's a sea change in how doctors think about cardiovascular

disease, " says Harvard cardiologist Ridker, a pioneer in

studying artery inflammation. " It's not just about cholesterol

anymore. " This radical rethinking is part of an intensifying attack

on heart disease, one that could, in our lifetime, neutralize the

most lethal killer of Americans. Heart attacks hit 865,000 people

in the U.S. each year; and heart disease kills an estimated 17

million worldwide annually (696,000 in the U.S.). Half of all men

in the U.S. will get heart disease. Despite powerful new drugs,

fully 64% of American adults have high cholesterol or other risk

factors, up from 58% in 1991. " We're losing the lifestyle war, "

says Libby, chief of cardiovascular medicine at Brigham

& Women's Hospital in Boston.

Now academic researchers, drug giants and fledgling biotechs

are opening up a new arsenal: genetic tracking to isolate flawed

genes; new drugs to quell inflammation or raise " good "

cholesterol; and new techniques to inspect plaque inside the

arteries.

The race is on to uncover the key molecular triggers of artery

inflammation and develop ways to detect and treat it before it

does fatal damage. Virtually every drug firm, including

Glaxokline, Novartis and & , is working on

some method of limiting inflammation. Pfizer, Eli Lilly,

Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca and others are testing drugs

that would reduce inflammation indirectly by raising the " good "

HDL cholesterol that helps the body pump fat out of the arteries.

" Atherosclerosis is very much an inflammatory disease, and

that's where all the future therapies are going, " says Colin

Macphee, a Glaxokline biologist. Adds Aldons Lusis, who

studies atherosclerosis at UCLA: " Every major drug company is

thinking about it. "

Ultimately, cardiologists hope to create a powerful new

triple-threat cocktail combining today's statin drugs for lowering

bad cholesterol (like Lipitor) with new compounds to boost good

cholesterol and other drugs that would directly reduce

vessel-wall inflammation. All of this, some researchers

speculate, might prevent 75% of all heart attacks. " We are getting

at the roots of the disease process, " saysCleveland Clinic

cardiologist Nissen, who is testing many of the new

drugs. " Can we roll the clock back on atherosclerosis? It is a

dream, but I think it is a dream that is about to come true. "

At the heart of the new assault is the radical view that heart

attacks don't result simply from blood vessels clogged with fatty

cholesterol plaques--that instead they may arise from an

immune system gone haywire trying to remove the cholesterol.

Immune cells called macrophages, trying to clear the mess,

eventually choke and die, worsening the situation. Inflamed with

immune cells, the resultant unstable plaques are prone to

rupture like a volcano at any time, spewing toxic fat globs into the

bloodstream and triggering deadly clots, causing cardiac arrest.

The inflammation theory helps explain why even someone with

low cholesterol can have a heart attack, and why so many

patients with no previous symptoms can suddenly be struck

down. The plaque that bursts isn't necessarily the one that

blocks arteries and causes symptoms. " Atherosclerosis is not a

killer. Almost all Americans over age 50 have plaque " in the

arteries, says Topol, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at

the Cleveland Clinic. " What kills people is the cracking of the

arteries. "