{"id":117591,"date":"2025-05-20T17:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T17:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/117591\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T17:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T17:16:11","slug":"the-10-second-test-that-reveals-if-youre-at-risk-of-common-heart-problem-that-leads-to-slow-agonising-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/117591\/","title":{"rendered":"The 10-second test that reveals if you’re at risk of common heart problem that leads to slow, agonising death"},"content":{"rendered":"

A simple measurement can help determine whether you are at risk of deadly heart failure, new research has suggested.<\/p>\n

Obesity <\/a>and a high body mass index (BMI) has long been known to raise the chances of developing the agonising disease.<\/p>\n

But now scientists have found that a person’s waist size could be a better indicator of risk, as it measures the most harmful type of fat that gathers around the internal organs.<\/p>\n

Heart failure weakens the organ’s ability to pump blood around the body effectively,\u00a0 usually as a result of the heart becoming too weak or stiff, increasing the chances of a fatal cardiac arrest.<\/p>\n

The most common symptoms of the condition include breathlessness, extreme fatigue, feeling lightheaded or fainting and swollen legs and ankles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr Amra Jujic, from Lund University, Sweden<\/a>, who is behind the latest research,\u00a0explained that where you carry fat \u2014rather than how much you weigh\u2014is a more crucial predictor of whether or not you’ll develop heart failure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said: ‘BMI is the most common measure of obesity, but it is influenced by factors such as sex and ethnicity, and does not take into account the distribution of body fat.<\/p>\n

‘Waist-to-height ration is considered a more robust measure of central adiposity [fat].’<\/p>\n

\"Scientists <\/p>\n

Scientists are now saying that waist-to-height ratios might be a better marker than BMI for cardiovascular diseases\u00a0<\/p>\n

This measurement can be determined at home using a tape measure, by dividing your waist measurement by your height, to discover your waist to height ratio (WHtR).<\/p>\n

Health professionals say your waist should be less than half your height, with a healthy waist-to-height ratio being between 0.4 and 0.49.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Studies have long shown that people who carry excess belly fat face higher risks of heart disease, type two diabetes and strokes.<\/p>\n

The new findings, which found a positive correlation between waist-to-height ratio and heart failure risk, were presented at congress of the European Society of Cardiology.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study tracked 1,792 people aged 45-73 for 12 years as part of the Malm\u00f6 Preventive health Project.<\/p>\n

Participants were chosen so that there was an equal representation of people with\u00a0 normal blood glucose levels, prediabetes and diabetes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All participants were followed up to see if they’d suffered heart failure.<\/p>\n

The average waist-to-height ratio was 0.57\u2014above the healthy range\u2014and 71 per cent of the cohort was male.<\/p>\n

Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n

Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n

During the 12 year follow-up, 132 people developed heart failure, which can come on suddenly or gradually over weeks or months, known as chronic heart failure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The researchers found that people who had a higher waist-to-height ratio were significantly more likely to experience heart failure, regardless of their BMI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those who had an average waist-to-height ratio of 0.65 or higher were nearly three times more likely to develop the condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr Jujic said: ‘Our results suggest that waist-to-height ratio may be a better metric than BMI to identify patients with heart failure who could benefit from therapies for obesity.<\/p>\n

‘Our next step is to investigate whether waist-to-height-ratio predicts other heart disorders in a larger cohort.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is estimated that more than one million people in the UK today have heart failure, according to the British Heart Foundation.<\/p>\n

Whilst heart failure does not mean that your heart has stopped working altogether, there is no cure for the condition, which will usually get worse over time, culminating in a slow, agonising death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lots of people however remain stable for many years, managing their symptoms through medication, lifestyle changes\u2014including a healthy diet, exercising regularly and quitting smoking\u2014and in some cases surgery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Heart <\/p>\n

Heart failure does not mean that the heart has stopped beating but that it needs some support to help work better. The condition cannot usually be cured\u00a0<\/p>\n

Treatment, which sometimes involves having a pace-maker inserted into the chest to help control heart rhythm, will usually be needed for life.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Having more fat in the abdominal area\u2014medically known as visceral fat\u2014has also been linked to harm in numerous parts of the body.<\/p>\n

Researchers <\/a>recently found that women with high levels of this type of fat were 60 per cent more likely than those with lower levels to suffer chronic pain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It comes as the rate of obesity in Britain continues to balloon, with two thirds of all adults now overweight. This compares to just half in the mid-90s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of the two-thirds overweight, about a quarter are obese, which is the equivalent of 16.8million people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Experts have blamed the nation’s ever-expanding waistline on the simultaneous rise of ultra-processed food and modern sedentary, desk-bound lifestyles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A simple measurement can help determine whether you are at risk of deadly heart failure, new research has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[92,105,812,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-117591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-sweden","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114541296677485041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}