That beer belly a guy’s toting around could mean trouble for his heart, a new study says.

Said belly fat is linked to changes in heart structure that can contribute to heart failure, researchers reported Monday at the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting in Chicago.

“Abdominal obesity, a high waist-to-hip ratio, is associated with more concerning cardiac remodeling patterns than high body mass index alone,” lead researcher Dr. Jennifer Erley, a radiology resident at University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, said in a news release.

A beer belly appears to contribute to changes “where the heart muscle thickens but the overall size of the heart doesn’t increase, leading to smaller cardiac volumes,” Erley said.

“In fact, the inner chambers become smaller, so the heart holds and pumps less blood. This pattern impairs the heart’s ability to relax properly, which eventually can lead to heart failure.”

For the new study, researchers analyzed MRI images for more than 2,200 adults 46 to 78 without known heart disease. They compared these images to the participants’ BMI and waist-to-hip ratio.

Results showed that high levels of belly fat were associated with thickening of the heart muscle and smaller heart chambers. 

These changes were more pronounced among men, particularly in their right ventricle — the chamber that pumps blood out of the heart to the lungs.

This could be due to the fact men are more likely to develop beer bellies earlier than women, or because women receive some heart health protection from the female hormone estrogen, Erley said.

“The sex-specific differences suggest that male patients may be more vulnerable to the structural effects of obesity on the heart, a finding not widely reported in earlier studies,” Erley said.

“Rather than focusing on reducing overall weight, middle-aged adults should focus on preventing abdominal fat accumulation through regular exercise, a balanced diet and timely medical intervention, if necessary,” Erley added.

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.