Fat thighs better than beer belly wrt. risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes

It is not how obese you are but the location of obesity that matters according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Where adults carry their fat, rather than how much of it they have, might be a better indicator of their risk for metabolic syndrome, a disorder that causes high blood pressure and insulin resistance in 22 percent of U.S. adults and 42 percent of older men and women, the researchers said in an article published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Race doesn’t affect the chances of acquiring metabolic syndrome. However it affects the symptoms.

Whites with metabolic syndrome tend to have higher levels of fat in their blood and lower levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol — “good cholesterol” — while blacks tend to have higher blood pressure and elevated blood-sugar levels.

If two people are the same weight, but one of them has a rounder abdomen — a beer belly — while the other has more rolls of fat, the one with the beer belly is probably at greater risk for metabolic syndrome, said Dr. Anne B. Newman, the study’s senior author and a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Pitt.

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As before diet and exercise are still the best ways to combat obesity.