Cardiologists are stressing the significant connection between waist circumference and overall heart health.
During the Philippine Heart Association (PHA)'s "Usapang Puso sa Puso" forum, Dr. Jun Aventura Jr. explained that maintaining normal blood pressure (BP), body mass index (BMI), and blood sugar levels is crucial to prevent the heart from overworking.
"BP should be around 130 over 80, waist circumference should be about 33 inches or less for women and below 37 inches in men," Aventura said.
He added that a waist measurement of more than 34.5 inches in women and more than 37 inches in men is considered a substantially increased health risk.
Aventura, executive director of the Philippine Heart Center (PHC), noted that a normal BMI for adults is considered to be between 18.5 and 24.9.
"Let's not wait to reach the serious level before we do something. Early detection and doing something about it are two different things," the cardiologist added.
Asked about the connection between obesity and heart failure, Dr. Liberty Yaneza of PHC explained that individuals with obesity are more likely to develop hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes, all of which can burden the heart and veins.
"So there's a clear or direct cause if you are obese to leading to heart failure," Yaneza continued.
Aventura, on the other hand, added that obesity often accompanies other metabolic abnormalities like hypertension and dyslipidemia.
"These are independent risk factors for coronary artery disease, which often leads to ischemic heart failure," he explained.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported on 24 March that ischemic or coronary heart disease remained the leading cause of death in the Philippines in 2024.
From January to September of last year, 75,446 deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease, accounting for 19.7 percent of total fatalities nationwide. While this figure is lower than the same period in 2023, it still represents the highest number of deaths by cause.
Ischemic or coronary heart disease, the most common type of heart damage, is caused by narrowed heart arteries, leading to a lack of oxygen and potentially a heart attack.
Last March, Yaneza stressed that patients with heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes are at higher risk of developing heart failure, which can progress to an advanced stage requiring costly treatments like heart transplants.
Following heart disease, neoplasms (abnormal tissue growths) were the second leading cause of death, followed by cerebrovascular diseases (affecting the brain's blood vessels), pneumonia, and diabetes.