MedWire News: Men and women with a thigh circumference below 60 cm have an increased risk for heart disease or premature death compared with those with larger thighs, report researchers.
To investigate whether thigh size is independently related to cardiovascular disease or premature death among the general population, Berit Heitmann and Peder Frederiksen (Copenhagen University and Glostrup University, Denmark) assessed 1436 men and 1380 women participating in the Danish MONICA (monitoring trends in and determinants of cardiovascular disease) project.
The participants were examined during 1987–1988 for height, weight, and thigh, hip, and waist circumference, as well as body composition. They were then followed up for incident cardiovascular and coronary heart disease for 10 years and for total death for 12.5 years.
Overall, 412 participants died, 403 experienced incident cardiovascular disease, and 137 experienced incident coronary heart disease over the follow-up period.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, the researchers report that there appeared to be a “threshold effect” with a greatly increased risk for premature death and cardiovascular disease associated with a thigh circumference below around 60 cm.
Above this measurement there appeared to be no additional benefit of having larger thighs for either men or women.
“The adverse effects of small thighs might be related to too little muscle mass in the region,” suggests the team.
“Our results suggest that there might be an increased risk of premature death related to thigh size,” conclude Heitmann and Frederiksen. “Furthermore, there seems to be a threshold effect of smaller thighs, but this needs further confirmation before the results can be generalized.”
They add: “General practitioners could use thigh circumference as an early marker to identify patients at later risk of cardiovascular disease and early mortality.”
MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a part of Springer Science+Business Media. © Current Medicine Group Ltd; 2009
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