To Take Care of Your Health, Measure Your Waist

Waist measurement can be an important habit in determining one's health, reports the New York Times . If the waist measures 35 or more inches for women or 40 or more inches for men, it is likely that their abdominal fat is dangerously high. Deeper belly fat that accrues around abdominal organs is metabolically active and has strong associations with serious diseases that include heart disease, cancer, and dementia. A study of 6,583 members of Kaiser Permanente of Northern California who were monitored for an average of 36 years found that those with the most abdominal obesity in midlife were almost three times more likely to develop dementia 30 years later than those with the least abdominal fat. A large abdomen also increased dementia risk in the women even if they were of normal weight overall and did not have other health risks related to dementia such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Unlike the cells in subcutaneous fat, visceral fat secretes hormones and many other chemicals linked to diseases that commonly afflict older adults. One such substance is retinol-binding protein 4, which was found in a 16-year study of nurses published in Circulation to increase the risk of developing coronary heart disease. This risk most likely stems from the harmful effects of this protein on insulin resistance and development of diabetes.