Apples for Health- Love handles put the squeeze on lungs

Love handles put the squeeze on lungs

PARIS, March 9 (UPI) -- Belly fat is strongly associated with decreased lung function, sex, body mass index and other complications, researchers in France said.

Lead author Dr. Natalie Leone of French National Institute for Health and Medical Research and colleagues analyzed health information on more that 120,000 people from the Paris Investigations Preventives et Cliniques Center and assessed demographic background, smoking history, alcohol consumption, as well as lung function, including forced expiratory volume in one second and forced vital capacity, or the total expiratory volume with respect to body mass index, waist circumference and other measures of metabolic health.
Abdominal obesity was defined as having a waist circumference of greater than 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men.

"After adjustment for age, sex, BMI, smoking status, alcohol consumption, leisure time physical activity and cardiovascular history, metabolic syndrome remained independently associated with lung function impairment," Leone said in a statement. "We found a positive independent relationship between lung function impairment and metabolic syndrome due mainly to abdominal obesity."

The findings are published in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.