If you are overweight (no matter whether you shape like an apple or a pear), you have a higher risk of death than someone with normal weight, a European study says.

However, people who have an apple-like-shape or collect weight around the middle are at even higher risk of death than pear-like-shape or those who collect excess weight around their hips and thighs.

Dr. Tobias Pischon, who led the study, says: “We have found that a large waist circumference relates to a higher risk of death even for people who have the same BMI. So, we can say that fat accumulation in the abdominal area is even more damaging than just have a higher BMI level.”

A prior study has linked abdominal fat with an increased risk of chronic diseases. However, this previous study didn’t assess the risk of death in those who were weight and those overweight who had more abdominal fat, background information in the study say.

The new study has been published in New England Journal of Medicine Nov. 13 issue. In this study, those 360,000 people from nine European countries were included who were taking part in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.