Six Body Measurements Compared in 400,000 Adults Reveal Surprising Heart Attack Risk: Study

Could body shape be a better indicator of heart attack risk than body weight alone? A new study suggests that the body roundness index (BRI), which combines waist circumference and height, may predict heart attack risk slightly better than traditional measures such as body mass index (BMI).

Published in the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, the study analysed data from 395,831 adults aged 40 to 70 years enrolled in the UK Biobank cohort. Researchers investigated whether BRI and other body measurements were associated with the risk of myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack.

Traditional obesity measures have important limitations. While BMI assesses weight relative to height, it cannot determine where fat accumulates. Similarly, waist circumference cannot distinguish between visceral fat surrounding internal organs and subcutaneous fat beneath the skin.

Participants were followed for a median of 13.3 years, during which 14,419 heart attacks were recorded. Researchers compared six anthropometric measures, including BRI, BMI, waist circumference, weight-adjusted waist index, body surface area and A body shape index.

The findings showed that participants in the highest BRI category had a 52% higher adjusted hazard of heart attack compared with those in the lowest category. Each standard deviation increase in BRI was associated with a 13% higher adjusted hazard.

BRI also demonstrated slightly better predictive performance than the other measures, with an area under the curve of 0.710 compared with 0.697 to 0.708 for the alternatives. The associations were generally consistent between men and women, although BRI showed a slightly stronger predictive advantage among men.

Researchers suggested that abdominal fat accumulation may contribute to cardiovascular risk through metabolic disturbances, including insulin resistance, abnormal cholesterol levels and inflammation.

However, the study was observational and could not establish causation. The findings suggest that BRI could eventually become a simple, inexpensive tool for assessing heart attack risk, although its additional value over existing cardiovascular risk assessments remains uncertain.

REFERENCE: He, Z., Li, G. & Zhou, L. Body roundness index and other anthropometric indices in relation to incident myocardial infarction: a cohort study from the UK Biobank. J Health Popul Nutr (2026). DOI: 10.1186/s41043-026-01481-w,