That beer belly a guy’s toting around could mean trouble for his heart, a new study says.
Said belly fat is linked to changes in heart structure that can contribute to heart failure, researchers reported Monday at the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting in Chicago.
“Abdominal obesity, a high waist-to-hip ratio, is associated with more concerning cardiac remodeling patterns than high body mass index alone,” lead researcher Dr. Jennifer Erley, a radiology resident at University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, said in a news release.
A beer belly appears to contribute to changes “where the heart muscle thickens but the overall size of the heart doesn’t increase, leading to smaller cardiac volumes,” Erley said.
“In fact, the inner chambers become smaller, so the heart holds and pumps less blood. This pattern impairs the heart’s ability to relax properly, which eventually can lead to heart failure.”
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