Prof Jonathan Seckl led the research

They said that their research had identified that cortisol, a steroid which is produced inside fat cells, could be one of the primary sources of heart disease.

It found that the enzyme which produced it was two to three times more active in people with fat which collects around the middle of the body.

The team also suggested that drugs which inhibited the enzyme could be used to treat conditions like diabetes - and even prevent heart disease.

Prof Seckl said his team had been working on the research for a number of years in collaboration with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"We have made a significant advance in our understanding of obesity, diabetes and heart disease - and how we now approach the commonest causes of death in the western world," he said.

The research took more than five years

Speaking to BBC Scotland, he added: "I think it would mean that people who had this risk, perhaps about 20% of the Scottish population, indeed the Western population, who have fat around the middle, that they might be able not to get the nasty consequences of the fat around the abdomen.

"Which is they would get much less of a risk of diabetes of high blood fats, maybe high blood pressure and as a consequence of that."

However, they still need to find a pharmaceutical company to work with to develop the drugs to prevent the enzyme's production.

The research was partly funded by the British Heart Foundation, but it has warned that it should not be seen as a cure in isolation.

The foundation's Ian Lowis said: "We should first take the steps ourselves to ensure that we can do as much as we can individually to make sure that we don't have to rely on drugs in order to keep ourselves healthy and reduce the risk of heart disease or other diseases."