A major study has found that women with large waists have much higher risks of serious gallbladder disease.
Done by researchers at Harvard and the University of Kentucky, the study involved over 42,000 women and related their waist and hip sizes to the occurrence of gallstone disease serious enough to require gallbladder removal.
The study found that women with waists of 36 inches or more had double the risk of attacks requiring surgery of those women with waists of 26 inches or less.
Similarly, the larger a woman's waist compared to her hips, the higher was the risk.
Dr. Chung-Jyi Tsai and his colleagues analyzed data from the Nurses' Health Study, which involved 42,312 women between 39 to 66 who were free of gallstone disease at the study's start in 1986.
Over 14 years of follow-up, 3,197 cholecystectomies were done.
The authors suggest that one explanation for the boosted risk of large-waisted women is that abdominal fat is "more metabolically active" than other fats.
They speculate that this could stress the liver and gallbladder and increasing the likelihood of the development of gallstones.
The study is published in the journal, Gut.
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