Belly size more accurate for heart disease risk

As middle age advances, many people face the disappointment and discomfort of being unable to button their favourite trousers or of seeing a T-shirt fail to hang as straight as it did during their trim twenties and flirty thirties.

But that belly flab could be more than just an unwanted spare tyre; it is probably also a warning of increased heart disease risk, if the latest research published in the Journal Of The American College Of Cardiology ( JACC ) is anything to go by.

Until now, body mass index (BMI) – a metric for determining if a person is overweight or obese – has been used to assess heart disease risk.