Bigger paunch predicts diabetes in men

Overall obesity, measured by high body mass index (BMI) (the height-to-weight ratio), and abdominal obesity, measured by a large waist circumference, strongly and independently predict the risk of type 2 diabetes in men. Abdominal fat or paunch can indicate a strong risk for diabetes whether a man is considered overweight obese according to his BMI or not. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore compared the predictive power of BMI, waist circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio for the development of type 2 diabetes in 27,270 men. During the 13 years of follow-up, a total of 884 men developed type 2 diabetes. The risk of developing diabetes in men increased as the circumference of their waist increased. The risk increased by 12 fold in men with the highest waist circumference up to 158 centimeters. A similar risk was seen for waist-to-hip ratio and BMI, with the largest values associated with a 7-fold and 8-fold increased risk respectively. The findings suggest that the measurement of waist circumference should be used in clinical practice instead of waist-to-hip ratio. The currently recommended cutoff for high waist circumference of 102 cm (40 inches) for men may need to be lowered to 95 cm. It was also found that men who developed type 2 diabetes had measurements lower than the cutoff, and the risk associated with the waist circumference increased at a much lower level.