The International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk will announce this year’s winners of its European Media Prize at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) meeting in September.
The objective of the European Media Prize of the International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk is to raise awareness of abdominal obesity as a key risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Health professionals currently classify obesity using body mass index (BMI), which only takes into account a patient’s weight and height. The media, too, most often use BMI when referring to obesity. However, a wealth of scientific evidence indicates that it is the amount of abdominal fat, irrespective of the patient’s weight, that is the key factor to consider when assessing a patient’s risk. One of the Chair’s main objectives is therefore to raise awareness of waist circumference as a simple marker of abdominal fat. More and more studies are showing that abdominal obesity is a key modifiable risk factor that must be considered along with other more traditional risk factors in order to accurately assess a patient’s global risk of cardiovascular disease. This global risk is defined as global cardiometabolic risk. By considering abdominal obesity as well as traditional risk factors, physicians will be able to better assess risk in their patients and also focus on an emerging, crucial risk factor: abdominal obesity.
This new concept of global cardiometabolic risk, which takes into consideration the risk of abdominal obesity, can help in the fight against the current diabetes and cardiovascular disease epidemic. The top three European reporters judged by an independent board of experts to have written the best article on an issue relevant to cardiometabolic risk will be invited to an awards ceremony during the next annual meeting of the ESC to be held in Munich, Germany on September 1, 2008.
