Photo: D. Sharon Pruitt (Flickr)
You may have heard that it is important to watch the size of your waist. Why is this true? Having a very large waist is a sign of being overweight or obese.
But even if you’re not technically overweight, waist size is still something to keep an eye on.
Watching Your Waist
Dozens of studies over the past few years have shown that a thick waist raises the risk for heart disease.
Now a new study finds that the thicker your waist, the greater chance you have of dying of cancer and other diseases.
Researchers looked at health data from more than 100,000 people over nine years and found that those with the largest waists were twice as likely to die due to illness during the study period compared to people with smaller waists.
So why is having a thick waist so bad for you?
It’s not completely clear. But it could be because the bigger your waist, the more fat there is around your vital organs. And that kind of fat is thought to be liable to cause inflammation, high cholesterol, and other problems including cancer.