Girth clue to diabetes risk

Waist circumference in children and adolescents predicts insulin resistance, a risk factor for diabetes, says a report in the Journal of Pediatrics.

And this is independent of body mass index (BMI), a height to weight ratio used to determine how thin or fat an individual is, it says.

"Abdominal obesity is a health risk even though the BMI may not be very high," said Dr Silva Arslanian from Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Dr Arslanian and colleagues investigated how well waist circumference reflected total fat, superficial abdominal fat (subcutaneous) and fat surrounding internal organs (visceral) in youths, and if waist circumference alone predicted insulin resistance.

They found waist circumference was marginally, but consistently, better at predicting these conditions than the combination of circumference and BMI.

- REUTERS