Obesity has long been implicated as a cause of early death. It is associated with cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and other serious disorders. But while being overweight generally has a bad effect on the body, a specific kind of fat is especially dangerous – belly fat, or visceral fat. Visceral fat is deposited inside the center part of the body around viscera such as the liver , pancreas and intestines, and feels more solid than subcutaneous fat which is loose and jiggly.
A study published in the British Medical Journal discovered that “central fatness” was positively associated with death from all causes regardless of general obesity. Each 10-centimeter increase in belly girth raised the risk of death from any cause for women by 8 percent and for men by 12 percent.
Visceral fat is especially harmful because it secretes a protein that suppresses the effects of insulin, thus leading to type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, excess cholesterol, heart disease, some cancers and Alzheimer’s disease.
The study concluded that measures of central fatness could be used with body mass index as a supplementary approach to determine the risk of premature death.
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