Thigh circumference and risk of heart disease and premature death

doi:10.1136/bmj.b3302

Published 3 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3302
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3302

Editorials

Thigh circumference and risk of heart disease and premature death

Are linked, but the strength of the association needs furtherresearch

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Several anthropomorphic indices have been devised to help clinicianspredict cardiovascular risk, including body mass index, waistcircumference, hip circumference, and waist-hip ratio. Becausenone has clearly been shown to be superior,¹ investigators continueto look for better measures, and in the linked study (doi:10.1136/bmj.b3292)Heitmann and Frederiksen propose a new one—thigh circumference.²

In a cohort of 1436 men and 1380 women aged 35-65 years participatingin the Danish MONICA (monitoring trends in and determinantsof cardiovascular disease ) project, the authors examined theassociation between thigh circumference and the incidence ofcardiovascular disease and coronary artery disease at 10 yearsand total mortality at 12.5 years. They fitted four separateproportional hazard regression models to the data for eithersex to examine the association between thigh circumference,measured in centimetres directly below the gluteal fold of theright thigh, and hazard ratio of disease and death. The . . . [Full text of this article]

Ian A Scott, director of internal medicine and clinical epidemiology

¹ Princess Alexandra Hospital, Ipswich Road, Brisbane, QLD, Australia 4102

ian_scott@health.qld.gov.au

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