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Elders With Extra Belly Fat May Be At Risk Of Stroke

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@tampatrib.com

Published: April 4, 2009

Too much weight around the middle has been shown to make heart disease more likely. But does it also affect the chance of having a stroke among the elderly? Two-thirds of all strokes occur in people older than 65.

A study in the online medical journal Stroke analyzed data on 1,137 older adults, most in their mid-60s, including 379 who'd had a stroke or a transient ischemic attack (TIA) and twice as many who'd had neither.

The risk for stroke or TIA (a mini-stroke that leaves no lasting damage) was four times greater for people with larger waists (about 40 inches or more for men, 35 or more for women) than for those with smaller waists (less than 37 inches for men, less than 31 for women). People with the largest waist-to-hip ratio (waist measurement divided by hip measurement) had nearly an eight times greater risk of stroke or TIA than those with the smallest. Body mass index (BMI), an indicator of body fatness calculated from weight and height, had no correlation to the risk of stroke or TIA.

The study did not determine whether the effect differed for stroke and TIA, and it did not include data on people's diets, which may have affected their risk of stroke.

The Washington Post

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