If you have a beer belly, you're at a significantly increased risk for sudden cardiac death, says an article in the New York Times.
 

Sudden cardiac death isn't the same thing as a heart attack. Heart attacks are usually caused when a blockage, usually a clot, deprives the heart of blood.  Sudden cardiac death — or sudden cardiac arrest — is  caused by an electrical malfunction that causes the heart to beat erratically. The heart's ventricles may quiver (ventricular fibrillation) and blood to the brain is so drastically reduced that the victim loses consciousness. If the person doesn't receive emergency treatment, such as defibrillation and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), the person will die. In fact, sudden cardiac death is the cause of about half of all heart-related deaths.
 

Scientists at The Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, followed almost 15,000 people for almost 13 years. As expected, they found that those who died from cardiovascular disease during the study period had higher rates of risk factors, including obesity and high blood pressure. But an independent risk factor was the waist-to-hip ratio. Those with the highest ratio were more than twice as likely to die of sudden cardiac death as those whose waist-to-hip ratio was normal.
 

"We’re not sure what’s mediating it," said the lead author, Dr. Selcuk Adabag, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota. "But abdominal obesity is much more inflammatory, much worse than general obesity," the New York Times quoted him as saying.
 

"There’s no easy answer," he said, pointing to the difficulty of whittling down extra abdominal pounds. "You have to make a significant effort to reduce your cardiac risk by weight loss, diet and exercise."
 

To read the entire New York Times article, go here.