A new study found that it’s better to be pear-shaped– weight around the hips, than apple-shaped– weight around the stomach, because an apple-shaped body can increase your chances of heart disease if you already have diabetes. 

A team of researchers from John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland and Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah studied 200 patients with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes and found that a bigger waist size meant higher risk of heart disease.  

If an individual has a lot of body fat around their stomach it’s associated with a fatty liver which is linked to diabetes. If people carry their fat lower, that means they’re usually insulin resistant, meaning they’re at risk for diabetes and heart disease, according to Marianna Wetherill, a medical doctor who is also an Assistant Professor of Health Promotion Sciences at the College of Public Health, OU-Tulsa Schusterman Center. 

Study participants had screenings to examine left ventricular function — how the heart pumps oxygen-rich blood to the body. 

“We specifically found that waist circumference appears to be a stronger predictor for left ventricle dysfunction than total body weight or body mass index,” says Dr. Boaz D. Rosen, of Johns Hopkins.

However, Rosen says more research is needed to support this study.

“It will be important to see if these patients are indeed at risk of developing heart failure or coronary artery disease in the future,” he said.

To prevent the complications linked to a larger waistline, Wetherill says to be as physically active as possible and avoid eating lots of foods that have excess sugar.