If you want to get a quick assessment of your risk for heart disease, and you don’t want to do a bunch of difficult and inconvenient tests, just look at your waist size. According to an article in WebMD by Daniel DeNoon, if your waist size is larger than 39 inches, you could be at risk right now for heart disease and/or diabetes.
A research team led by Hans Wahrenberg of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden did a study of 2,746 healthy volunteers aged 18-72. The test subjects waist measurements varied from 25.6 to 59 inches. They found that 50% of those people with waists 39 inches or more were insulin-resistant. This means that they were showing the beginning signs of diabetes.
How does this relate to heart health? Insulin resistance is usually the result of having continually high blood glucose levels. This is caused by eating a lot of sugary and processed foods or ones that are high-glycemic (converted into sugar by the body very quickly). The body responds by creating more insulin which triggers fat cells to accept more glucose to get it out of the blood.
Over time, if the body keeps going through these cycles of high insulin secretion and then the blood sugar level crashes, it starts to become resistant to it’s own insulin. That is, the insulin starts to be less effective in ridding the blood of glucose. This starts to result in some other negative, serious effects on cardiovascular health.
These can include lower HDL cholesterol, higher triglycerides, higher LDL cholesterol, and restricting of the arteries. All this can result in more blockage in the arteries, high blood pressure, clotting, and eventually heart disease.
So, it’s very critical to keep your weight under control. The best approach is to start with a low glycemic diet - foods that take longer for the body to break down and absorb. Whole foods, in general, are lower glycemic. Make sure to eat lots of fruits and vegetables too. In addition to having lots of dietary fiber, they also are packed with phytonutrients, minerals, and antioxidants. And make sure to take high quality nutritional supplements to fortify your body, build up your immune system, and as insurance for any nutrients your diet may be short in.
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