Bogus BMI Should Be Replaced With Waist-To-Hip Ratio, Study Finds

Dr. Salim Yusuf says ignore BMI, check your WHR instead

This Globe & Mail story about how researchers are discovering the traditional body mass index (BMI) is no longer relevant because it is a useless indicator of potential heart disease.

Instead, researchers led by professor of medicine Dr. Salim Yusuf from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario Canada, discovered that the amount of fat that is stored around the belly in relation to the size of your hips can provide more clarity about risks to the heart.

In fact, Dr. Yusuf noted that the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) test is three times more likely to predict a heart attack than your BMI, which he bluntly states has "no value."

"The best index of obesity as a predictor of myocardial infarction is the waist-to-hip ratio," Dr. Yusuf concluded in his study.

Published in the latest issue of the medical journal The Lancet, this study provides even further proof that obesity is something that must be dealt with immediately. Allowing yourself to have a big gut is extremely dangerous and needs to be dealt with through a proven process of getting rid of it. For me, the answer to that was the low-carb lifestyle.

And actually, a low-fat diet has been shown to actually store fat IN the abdomen area rather than burn it! Yikes! But when you are livin' la vida low-carb, the fat burns and burns which makes your waist shrink and shrink. It will astound you how well low-carb really works!

For me, I had a 62-inch waist when I was 410 pounds on January 1, 2004. Today, nearly two years later, my waist is a "loose" 40 and a much healthier 225 pounds. Of course, my waist would be smaller if I could remove the 10-15 pounds of excess skin that still exists in my belly. I don't let that get me down, though, because I see it as a reminder of just how far I have been able to come. It's my battle scar to remind me of my victory over my own pesonal obesity problem.

Dr. Yusuf added tht all of that extra weight in people's midsection can lead to a series of debilitating conditions.

"What we know is that fat in the abdomen, which is associated with a larger waist, is metabolically active and produces various hormones that can cause harmful effects, such as causing diabetes, affecting blood pressure, affecting lipid [blood fat] levels," said Dr. Yusuf. "Fat in the abdomen may also relate to fat in the liver, and that makes the liver not function well."

Want some motivation to start livin' la vida low-carb? Well, there you go!

Just in case you think this study was just a small sampling from certain regions of the world and cannot be relied upon for people everywhere, check this out. It involved over 27,000 participants from 52 different countries and ethnic groups. Over half of them had already had a heart attack and werd susceptible to having another one.

Those with the highest HWR were 2.5 times more likely to have a heart attack than those with the lowest ratio.

What are you waiting for? The government is not going to help you deal with your big belly and obesity. They'll try, but they can't be your mommy and daddy holding your hand through this. You just have to do it for yourself. It doesn't matter to me what you do to lose weight, but you should do something. Low-carb is an extremely effective way to burn lots and lots of fat. I used to have 50% body fat, but now it's down to this number thanks to the low-carb lifestyle.

I BELIEVE IN YOU and you should believe in yourself that livin' la vida low-carb works! It really does!

You can write to Dr. Yusuf at yusufs@mcmaster.ca.