Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

`Apple belly' may stop your heartbeat

Santosh Patnaik

VISAKHAPATNAM: One may not be visibly obese and of overweight to become a potential diabetic having high risk to severe heart diseases and blocks in the arteries.

Known in medical parlance as `Apple Belly Syndrome X', the patients, mostly men, will have glucose intolerance, high triglycerides and insulin resistance.

"The patient may not have visible symptoms of being an obese and a diabetic, but his configuration will not be normal, and a check-up once a year after 30 to 35 years of age will lead to confirmation of the syndrome," Apollo cathlab director D.K. Baruah told The Hindu on Tuesday.

Patients with apple belly and diabetic women with high triglycerides are in high-risk group for suffering severe heart ailments.

"Unfortunately, if the detection is delayed abnormally, bypass surgery or angioplasty results may not be good among such patients," he remarked and said that problems might crop up between five and 20 years after having an apple belly.

Endocrinologist in King George Hospital K.A.V. Subramanyam said that lifestyle modification, disparity in food intake and physical activity were responsible for high incidence of apple belly in the Indian sub-continent.

"In most cases fat gets accumulated in a hidden form in the abdomen leading to high risk behaviour with diabetes, hypertension and other associated diseases in later stages," he said adding that genetic contribution was also responsible for high incidence.

Android obesity

According to consultant dietician M. Anuradha Reddy, potbelly or android obesity in men and women is associated with an increased risk for cardio-vascular disease, hypertension, elevated blood sugar and gallstones.

Abdominal fat may be more readily converted to cholesterol than fat deposited elsewhere. Pear shaped people, with fat accumulation around hips, do not experience as much diabetes or high blood pressure or as many heart attacks as those whose fat is around the middle.

The dietician said that causes of android obesity were excess eating, alcohol consumption, difference in metabolism, aging, meal frequency, TV watching and inheritance. A high-fat, high-calorie, low-fibre diet is thought to be the major dietary factor in potbelly.

Tips for patients

Ms. Anurandha Reddy recommends that diet should be low in fat, high in fibre and complex carbohydrates, with adequate protein.

"The best prescription I give for the potbellied people is the right kind of carbohydrates and right kind of fats which enable one to live happily without bad carbohydrates and bad fats. As a result, one is going to get healthy and lose weight around the abdomen. This works wonders without doing away eating," she said.

Along with smart eating, she recommended exercising for life which would help keep the body engine revved up, so that more calories were burnt by muscle and less insulin was required to dispose of elevated blood sugar following meals.

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