Early last month my brother and his wife came to Halifax from Moncton. It was time for my sister-in-law to have her hip joint renewed. She had had a new hip joint installed about 20 years ago and it had finally worn out. The hip replacement went fine and she was recovering nicely when the doctors discovered that she had a problem with her heart. They spent several weeks treating this new problem and stabilizing her condition enough so that she could safely travel home. Once home and after several weeks of treatment in the hospital at home they were able to correct the problem with her heart and she will be going home shortly.
This incident got me thinking about heart attacks and yoga.
In October of 2005 I had read several reports about a better way to assess your risk of heart attack. A Canadian-led study reported in the October 2005 issue of The Lancet medical journal that the standard measure of obesity called the body-mass index (BMI) doesn’t work as well as measuring how big a person’s waist is compared to their hips.
Drawing data from 27,098 people from 52 countries, the study concluded that the waist-to-hip ratio is three times more accurate at predicting a person’s heart attack risk than using their BMI. BMI (based on a person’s weight and height) takes no notice of where a person’s fat lies or how muscular that person may be, says Dr. Arya Sharma, co-author of the study and a professor of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. A well-muscled athlete and an obese person could have similar BMI scores. “If we are going to try to prevent heart disease, your focus has to be on waist circumference, not just weight,” said Sharma.
The researchers suggest a two-part strategy based on their findings: trim the area around the waist; and possibly boost hip size by increasing muscle mass or redistributing fat.
How to calculate waist-to-hip ratio:
Figuring out your risk is simple. Using a tape measure:
- Measure your hips at the widest part
- Measure your waist at the narrowest part.
- Then divide the waist number by the hip number.
For a healthy woman: the ratio should be under 0.85
For a healthy man: the ratio should be below point 0.90
(A 30-inch waist and 36-inch hips would work out to a favorable 0.83, or 83 per cent.)
Now what does this have to do with yoga?
A regular yoga practice will help you to reduce the abdominal fat (the harmful stuff) and increase the muscle mass of the body. Also a regular yoga practice will help you to better manage your level of stress which is another contributor to heart attack risk. And finally a regular yoga practice can also increase the health of the heart itself especially if you have a vigorous yoga practice such as Ashtanga yoga.
A regular yoga practice will help to make you more aware of your body and its overall health and you will start to take steps to improve its health while staying tuned to the bodies feedback.
My waist to hip ratio is 0.87. Whats yours?
