Sophia Antipolis [France], May 18 (ANI): A new study presented at Heart Failure 2025, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology, has identified the waist-to-height ratio (WtHR) as a significant predictor of heart failure incidence. Unlike the commonly used Body Mass Index (BMI), WtHR is considered a more accurate measure of central adiposity, which refers to fat accumulation around visceral organs.
According to Dr. Amra Jujic from Lund University, Malmo, Sweden, BMI is influenced by factors such as sex and ethnicity and does not accurately reflect fat distribution. In contrast, WtHR is a more robust indicator of harmful fat deposition and is not associated with the paradoxically good heart failure (HF) outcomes sometimes observed with high BMI. This prompted researchers to investigate the relationship between WtHR and HF development.
The study analyzed data from 1,792 participants aged 45-73 years from the Malmo Preventive Project, including individuals with normal blood glucose levels, impaired fasting glucose, and diabetes. The average age was 67 years, and 29% of participants were women. The median WtHR was 0.57, with an interquartile range of 0.52-0.61.
Over a median follow-up period of 12.6 years, 132 HF events were recorded. Results showed that a higher WtHR was significantly associated with an increased risk of HF, even after adjusting for potential confounders. Specifically, each one standard deviation increase in WtHR was linked to a 34% higher risk of HF (HR 1.34; 95% CI 1.12-1.61; p=0.001). Additionally, individuals in the highest WtHR quartile (median 0.65) had a 2.71-fold higher risk of HF compared to those in the lower quartiles (HR 2.71; 95% CI 1.64-4.48; p<0.001).
Study co-author Dr. John Molvin from Lund University and Malmo University Hospital emphasized that the ideal waist measurement should be less than half of a person’s height. He noted that the median WtHR in the study was notably higher than 0.5, the threshold for increased cardiometabolic risk.
Dr. Molvin concluded, “Our findings indicate that WtHR is a significant predictor of incident HF and may be a better metric than BMI for identifying patients with HF who might benefit from obesity-related therapies. Our future research will examine whether WtHR also predicts other cardiometabolic disorders in a larger cohort.” (ANI)
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