BIG BELLIES LEAD TO EARLY DEATHS

DANGERS OF MIDDLE AGE BELLY SPREAD

After 40 your waist tends to have a middle age spread.  Your belly will get hard like a summa wrestler or soft like jelly. The jelly fat under the abdominal skin only sits in storage waiting to be burned for energy.  Not all fat cells work alike.

 The hard belly fat is under the abdominal muscle and is much more dangerous than soft jelly fat under the skin.  Fat accumulation inside the abdomen is more dangerous to your health than fat anywhere else in your body 

It is very biologically active and doubles your risk of an early death.   This fat produces more inflammation than fat found in other areas of the body.  Inflammation is thought to play a key role in heart disease and a host of other chronic diseases.

Visceral fat wraps around your inner organs (stomach, pancreas, liver, and gall bladder) and is very metabolically active, unlike the soft fat right under the abdominal skin

A sizable stomach seems to double your risk of death from type 2 diabetes, cancer, stroke, heart disease, chronic diseases, and even age-related dementias.  Your risk increases even if you are not obese or even overweight.

People who have big bellies in their 40s are much more likely to get Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia in their 70s.  This risk for dementia increases steadily with the amount of fat in the abdomen, even after accounting for alternative explanations, such as other diseases, bad habits and lower education.

 The secretions from visceral fat must go to the liver before they can get into the circulation, and release very potent toxins, noxious chemicals, constricting blood vessels and triggering other inflammatory processes.   It is the cause of type2 diabetes and insulin resistance.  The lipid fat release from abdominal fat is substantially elevated during the night, which is a primary mechanism leading to insulin resistance, a strong risk factor for type 2 diabetes."

Males with waists over 40 inches and females over 35 inches are in danger of early deaths.  Every 2-inch increase results in 15% more mortality. 

Why is there an overnight elevation of abdominal fat release, and what role does this plays in the development of obesity and insulin resistance is to still be determined.

 In the meantime folks, get that belly down by exercising and cutting out all the empty calories in your lattes, snacks, and high sugar beverages.

Source Science Daily, July 12, 2008,   Science,Nov. 12, 2008 –

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