Ladies, sick of your muffin tops? Here is some good news!
Women with more abdominal fat are at a low risk of bone fracture than those with toned abs, a new study has found.
However, the research did not find a low risk of bone fracture in men with pot bellies.
The finding could explain why global rates of fracture are declining at the same time as obesity is increasing, researchers said.
They believe that the protective effect of abdominal fat in women probably relates to higher levels of oestrogen.
Women with more abdominal fat tend to have higher levels of oestrogen, which protects against bone loss, and therefore fracture risk.
The data is from the ongoing Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study (DOES), initiated in mid-1989 in the city of Dubbo, about 400 km northwest of Sydney.
The current study examined 1126 participants, 360 men and 766 women, over age 50, recruited to DOES after 2000, when whole body density scanning began.
The findings revealed that those women in the top 25 per cent of higher abdominal fat mass had a 40 per cent lower risk of fracture than those with a lower abdominal fat mass.
Put another way, each 1 kg less of abdominal fat in women increases their risk of fracture by 50 per cent.
There was no such trend seen in men.
Authors Dr Shuman Yang and Professor Tuan Nguyen from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research published their findings in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology.
"The prevalence of obesity in Australia is not as high as in the US, so our findings relate to 'moderate' abdominal obesity when discussed in a global context," Nguyen said in a statement.
"This study appears to be consistent with the fact that obesity levels are rising worldwide and at the same time fracture incidence is decreasing," Nguyen added.
