A new study suggests that your waist size in relation to your height may be a stronger warning sign for future heart failure than your body mass index (BMI).
The research was presented at the Heart Failure 2025 conference by Dr. Amra Jujic and her team from Lund University in Malmö, Sweden.
While BMI is the most common way to measure obesity, it doesn’t tell the full story. BMI only compares your weight to your height and doesn’t show where fat is stored in the body.
It also doesn’t account for important differences based on sex or ethnicity.
In contrast, the waist-to-height ratio (WtHR) looks specifically at belly fat, which is known to be more harmful to heart health.
It’s calculated by dividing your waist size by your height. Experts say a healthy WtHR is less than 0.5—meaning your waist should be less than half your height.
To explore the link between WtHR and heart failure, the research team studied 1,792 people from the Malmö Preventive Project.
Participants were between 45 and 73 years old when the study began, and they were followed for more than 12 years to see who developed heart failure. Some participants had diabetes, others had slightly high blood sugar, and the rest had normal levels.
The average participant was 67 years old, and 29% were women. The typical waist-to-height ratio was 0.57, which is already above the healthy range. During the study, 132 people developed heart failure.
The researchers found that people with higher WtHRs were much more likely to develop heart failure, even after accounting for other health conditions. In fact, those with the highest waist-to-height ratios had nearly three times the risk of heart failure compared to those with lower ratios.
Dr. John Molvin, a co-author of the study, pointed out that many people in the study had waist sizes larger than half their height, putting them at increased risk for heart-related problems.
He emphasized that measuring WtHR could be a more accurate and useful tool than BMI when it comes to predicting heart failure and guiding treatment for obesity-related health issues.
The researchers now plan to study larger groups to see if waist-to-height ratio can also help predict other health conditions related to obesity, such as diabetes and heart disease.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about the best time to take vitamins to prevent heart disease, and calcium supplements could harm your heart health.
For more health information, please see recent studies that blackcurrants can reduce blood sugar after meal and results showing how drinking milk affects risks of heart disease and cancer.
Source: KSR.
