'Love Handles' Raise Risk of Death

The researchers, including some from Imperial College London, followed the volunteers, who were an average of 51 years old at the start of the study, for the next 10 years, during which time 14,723 of them died.

The standard measure of obesity, body mass index (BMI) remained a reasonable predictor of health problems, with those with a high reading more likely to die from cardiovascular disease or cancer.

However, the 'hip/waist ratio', a number produced by dividing the waist size by the hip measurement, and just the waist measurement on its own, were both good ways of sorting out those at highest risk.

Professor Elio Riboli, from Imperial College London, said: "We were surprised to see the waist size having such a powerful effect on people's health and premature death.

"There aren't many simple individual characteristics that can increase a person's risk of premature death to this extent, independently from smoking and drinking."

He added: "The good news is that you don't need to take an expensive test and wait ages for the result to assess this aspect of your health - it costs virtually nothing to measure your hip and waist size."