Abdomen fat tied to hypertension

Women with large waistlines are more likely to develop high blood pressure. A waist size of 35 inches or more for women and 40 inches or more for men indicates abdominal obesity. It is known to be associated with many heath hazards including heart disease, colon cancer and diabetes. To find out whether or not the fat inside the abdominal cavity, known as visceral adipose tissue increases the risk of hypertension, researchers from America studied 1582 people. The researchers used CT scans to measure abdominal fat and the better-known subcutaneous fat just beneath the skin and correlated these with the participants' blood pressures. It was found that excessive amounts of abdominal fat increased the risk of high blood pressure in women by 47 percent, but did not have a significant effect in men. Moreover, the researchers found that this held true regardless of total body fat levels and insulin resistance. The findings suggest that abdominal obesity predicts hypertension in women regardless of a person's overall body weight, hence is it is important to prevent abdominal obesity and not just obesity.

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