Lancet: Doubts emerge over heart risk to 'apple shape'

[avaistheone1]

Doubts have been raised over the idea that being overweight and "apple shaped" increases heart attack risk.

A study in the Lancet found the risk of heart attack was not increased by fat being concentrated around the waist.

It contradicts previous work that found overweight people with "apple shaped" bodies were three times as likely to suffer heart attacks than those with more generally distributed fat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12702227

[bengalherder]

1. I always found these to types to be puzzling anyways

as they are not consistent even within the same body. When I am relatively thin, I'm an 'apple', when I'm fat, a 'pear'. I am genuinely big boned and look insanely huge on a basic BMI/arcturial table. I am relatively proportinate, if a little short. I can fling 40-50 pound cases of veggies and chicken around like it's no-ones buisness and wear the same size 14-16 I did in HS...which was almost thirty years ago. If I were a man I'd be a 'football player type'...but I am a woman so gosh darn it, if I don't starve myself to an 'acceptable' weight I am considered, according to medical stereotyping, a risk for everything, even though I am VERY healthy.

Docs need to see people as people, not 'types', not conformists to arbitrary tables.