New Delhi, 23 March (IANS). The perimeter of the waist ie West Sarkarcharus (WC) can be a major indicator of obesity in men, while it was not found in women, it has been reported in a new study.
The body mass index (BMI) usually measures the shape of the body, but it does not explain where fat is spread in the body. In contrast, the width of the waist is more attached to the abdominal fat.
A study conducted by Dr. Ming Sun, Dr. Joseph Fritz and Dr. Tanja Stocks states that this difference is very important. The fat stored around the abdominal organs, called Visral Fat, is more metabolic active in the body and can lead to health problems such as insulin resistance, inflammation, and abnormal fat levels in blood.
Therefore, people with the same body mass index, due to separation of fat in the body, can also vary the risk of cancer.
The study analyzed health data of 3,39,190 people in Sweden from 1981 to 2019, whose BMI and waist width were measured. Of these, 61 percent of the measurements were taken by doctors, while 39 percent of the people themselves gave their information, the average age of these people was 51.4 years. Information related to cancer was taken from the Sweden’s Cancer Register.
Researchers compared the risk of cancer associated with obesity based on BMI and waist width. In this, many factors like age, smoking habits, education, income, place of birth and marital status were taken into consideration.
During the average study period of about 14 years, there were cases of cancer related to 18,185 obesity. When the analysis was done keeping in mind the BMI, the width of the waist in men was also associated with the risk of cancer. This means that the risk of cancer from stomach fat is not only due to large body, but especially due to abdominal fat.
In women, this relationship was found weak and the width of BMI and waist was the same for both.
In men, stomach fat remained at risk of cancer caused by obesity. This shows that stomach fat is a different danger, no matter what the weight of that person or body share in the body. At the same time, in women, the risk of both abdominal fat and body weight was low, and was almost equal.
According to the researchers, the reason for this may be that fat in the body of men is mostly stored inside the stomach, while in women it is more in the skin and other parts of the body.
The study also suggested that if the width of the hips is also included in the study, the relationship between the width of the waist and cancer in women can be understood further.
-IANS
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