Thick Calves Can Be a Good Sign of Health!

Being overweight or having an increased waist circumference is a known marker of greater risk of carotid artery atherosclerosis, and thus of stroke. Now there’s an indicator of decreased risk – thickened calves. This is described in a French study reported in the journal Stroke.

More than 6,000 subjects over 65 had an ultrasound examination of their coronary arteries for atherosclerotic plaque and the intima-media thickness, and body measurements of height, waist, hip circumference, and calf circumference. (The intima-media thickness represents the combined thickness of the two inner layers of the artery wall.)

Carotid plaques were less frequent with increasing calf circumference; this was independent of age, gender, body mass index (BMI), and other cardiovascular risk factors. There was an additional effect of waist-to-hip ratio; those with the highest waist-to-hip ratio and the lowest calf circumference had the highest frequency of carotid plaque – found in over half the pertinent subjects.

Why should a large calf circumference have an anti-atherosclerotic effect? Maybe there’s a similar differential effect of adipose tissue distribution, as with the well-known effect of the waist-to-hip ratio on plaque formation. Maybe the fat in the calves correlated with the fat in the hips???