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Researchers establish thresholds for BMI & WC in Caucasian & African-American men & women.

Scientists have begun to recognize that there are gender and ethnicity differences in cardiometabolic risk factors. In the June 2011 issue of Obesity Magazine, Peter Katzmarzyk, and colleagues out of the Pennington Metabolic Research Center found that were significant differences between the BMI and WC (waist circumference) values in whites and African-Americans, distributed by gender.

In an effort to more correctly estimate when a member of the study population would be more at risk for cardiometabolic disease, scientists compared the BMI & WC from African-American women and white women & African-American men and white men.

Defined in this study, the risk factors they were using to test the reliability of BMI & WC were BP, Fasting Glucose, Triglycerides, and HDL-C. Please go to the link above to see the actual article; the bottom line, however, is that WC & BMI are significantly good predictors for who is at the greatest risk of developing metabolic issues. The thresholds they determined, based on the 6,000 plus participants were as follows:

Katzmarzyk et al Thresholds

There were significant differences between the thresholds for AA Women vs. White Women; AA Women having a higher BMI (nearly 3kg/m*2) and AA Women having an additional 5cm (2 inches) WC compared to White Women, before they developed two or more of the risk factors.

Interestingly, there were no significant differences in the two groups of men in the study.

What it Means

In this study, white women developed 2 or more risk factors for cardiometabolic disease at a lower BMI and smaller WC than AA women. Where scientists began to realize that studies involving only men could not have their results blindly accepted for women as well, researchers are just beginning to identify that there may be ethnic differences in risk and disease predictors that need to be identified.

In My Opinion

Science has for too long held that One-size-fits-all model, or more accurately, that there are no differences between gender (long disproved), ethnicity or race. An AA woman who goes to her health practitioner, may benefit from learning that what may push her Caucasian friend into a higher risk strata is not the same for her.

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