Visceral Fat
Episodes
Dr. Valter Longo discusses how the fasting-mimicking diet is one of the few dietary interventions that can increase relative lean body mass.
Dr. Valter Longo describes how a fasting-mimicking diet can be used for fat loss while preserving lean muscle mass.
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Dr. Valter Longo discusses how the fasting-mimicking diet is one of the few dietary interventions that can increase relative lean body mass.
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Dr. Valter Longo describes how a fasting-mimicking diet can be used for fat loss while preserving lean muscle mass.
Topic Pages
News & Publications
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Eating a polyphenol-rich diet may cut abdominal fat. bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com
Eating a Mediterranean-style diet, which is abundant in polyphenol-rich fruits, vegetables, olive oil, legumes, and nuts, helps reduce abdominal fat, a 2022 study found. People who followed a Mediterranean-style diet supplemented with a polyphenol-rich shake for 18 months lost twice as much abdominal fat as those who consumed a lower-polyphenol diet.
Researchers assigned nearly 300 people to follow one of three diets plus exercise: a Mediterranean-style diet that included walnuts; a Mediterranean-style diet that included walnuts, green tea, and a shake that contained duckweed (a polyphenol-rich aquatic plant native to Asia); and a diet that adhered to conventional healthy dietary guidelines. They measured the participants' body weight and waist circumference and conducted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies to assess their abdominal fat at the beginning and end of the intervention.
They found that participants who followed the two variations of the Mediterranean/walnut diets lost body weight and their waist circumferences decreased, compared to those who followed the healthy dietary guidelines. However, MRIs revealed that while those who followed the Mediterranean/walnut diet lost 6.0 percent of their abdominal fat, those who followed the Mediterranean/walnut diet that included tea and duckweed lost 14.1 percent of their abdominal fat – more than twice as much.
Walnuts are rich in the polyphenolic compound ellagic acid. Bacteria in the human gut break down ellagic acid to produce urolithins. Scientists have identified about 20 urolithins, but the most studied of these is urolithin A, which exerts potent anti-obesity effects.
Duckweed is rich in polyphenols, carotenoids, omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, and many micronutrients, including iron and vitamin B12. The polyphenols in duckweed exert robust antioxidant activity and support healthy blood glucose levels – critical elements in maintaining healthy body weight and waist circumference.
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Estrogen mitigates the association between visceral fat on cognitive decline.
Estradiol, a form of estrogen, is the primary female sex hormone. It participates in menstrual cycle regulation and drives the development of female secondary sex characteristics, such as breasts, a wider pelvis, and gynoid fat – fat that forms around the hips, thighs, and breasts. Evidence suggests that estradiol exerts both cardioprotective and neuroprotective effects. Findings from a 2020 study demonstrate that estradiol mitigates the association between visceral fat on cognitive decline.
Cognitive decline is characterized by altered brain structural networks and accelerated degeneration with aging. Scientists don’t fully understand the biological mechanisms that drive cognitive decline, but evidence indicates that visceral fat – a type of fat that accumulates in the abdominal cavity – may play a role. Visceral fat is metabolically active and is associated with increased markers of inflammation and oxidative stress, and decreased levels of anti-inflammatory proteins, such as adiponectin
The cross-sectional study involved 974 cognitively healthy females and males (average age, ~50 years). Using magnetic resonance imaging, the investigators measured the participants' gray matter volume, cerebral cortex area, intracranial blood vessels, and visceral fat. They also measured estradiol concentrations in a subset (390) of the females. All the participants completed neuropsychological testing to assess memory performance.
The investigators found that visceral fat exacerbated the harmful effects of aging on the brain’s structural networks in both females and males. However, estradiol mitigated some of these effects in the females, but not the males. Females between the ages of 35 and 55 years (the period surrounding menopause) who had lower estradiol concentrations were more likely to exhibit greater structural network impairments and worse memory performance.
These findings suggest that estradiol mitigates some of the harmful effects of visceral fat on the brain’s structural networks and cognitive health. Interestingly, the fasting-mimicking diet preferentially depletes visceral fat. Learn more in this clip featuring Dr. Valter Longo.
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Inadequate sleep may preferentially act as a trigger for visceral fat accumulation (randomized controlled crossover study) www.sciencedaily.com
Inadequate sleep drives abdominal fat gains.
Visceral fat is body fat that is stored in the abdominal cavity near the liver, pancreas, and intestines. The accumulation of visceral fat is linked to type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, inflammatory diseases, certain types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other obesity-related conditions. Findings from a recent study suggest that not getting enough sleep increases the risk of developing excess visceral fat.
Sleep is essential for human health. Not getting enough sleep or having poor, fragmented sleep promotes the development of many chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, stroke, obesity, and depression. Scientists don’t fully understand the mechanisms that drive these effects, but some evidence suggests that disturbances in circadian rhythms play vital roles.
The trial involved 12 healthy young adults (aged 19 to 39 years) who engaged in an in-patient sleep study. Participants were allowed to have either a full night of sleep (nine hours of sleep opportunity) or restricted sleep (four hours of sleep opportunity) for two weeks. After a three-month washout period, participants repeated the study with the opposite sleep experience. The investigators measured the participants’ caloric intake, energy expenditure, body weight, body composition, and fat distribution throughout the study period.
They found that when participants were sleep-restricted, they consumed approximately 13 percent more protein and 17 percent more fat (translating to about 300 calories) daily, but their overall energy expenditure did not change. Sleep-restricted participants also gained weight. Much of this weight was in the abdominal area, with a 9 percent increase in total abdominal fat area and an 11 percent increase in visceral fat, compared to when they got a full night’s sleep.
These findings suggest that insufficient sleep increases caloric intake and promotes weight gain and visceral fat increases. Learn more about the harmful health effects of insufficient sleep in this episode featuring sleep expert Dr. Matt Walker.
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Seventy percent of adults living in the United States have overweight (BMI greater than 25) or obesity (BMI greater than 30), putting them at increased risk of metabolic disease. Extra fat stored around the body promotes inflammation and insulin resistance, but extra abdominal fat is particularly dangerous. Findings of a recent report suggest consuming foods rich in unsaturated fat and dietary fiber may improve fat distribution in females.
Fat stored in the lower body, called subcutaneous fat, is located just under the skin. Fat stored in the abdominal region, called visceral fat, is wrapped around the internal organs (e.g., the liver, pancreas, and intestines). Visceral fat interferes with lipid metabolism in the liver, promoting insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. A diet that includes avocados, which are rich in mono-unsaturated fats and dietary fiber, is associated with lower abdominal obesity.
The investigators recruited 105 adults between the ages of 25 and 45 years who had overweight or obesity. They assigned participants to receive meals with avocado (about one Hass avocado) or meals without avocado that were matched for calories and total fat. The two meals contained different amounts of saturated fat, unsaturated fat, and fiber. Participants consumed their assigned meals once per day for 12 weeks and were told not to change their diet in other ways. Participants completed an oral glucose tolerance test to measure insulin resistance and had their body composition measured using X-ray.
In females, avocado consumption decreased visceral adiposity and the ratio of visceral to subcutaneous fat, indicating an improvement in body fat distribution. Both males and females in the control group experienced a loss of subcutaneous fat and an increase in the ratio of visceral to subcutaneous fat, indicating a worsening of body composition over the 12 weeks. Avocado consumption had no effect on insulin resistance.
The authors concluded that avocado consumption improved body fat distribution in females, but had no effects on body fat distribution in males or on insulin resistance in either males or females.
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Exercise benefits people who have more than one chronic disease by disrupting inflammation from visceral fat www.inverse.com
People living with two or more chronic diseases – a condition known as multimorbidity – are more likely to take multiple medications, have more frequent and longer hospital stays, and die prematurely than those with only one chronic disease. Multimorbidity is common among older adults.60240-2/fulltext) Findings from a recent meta-analysis suggest that exercise benefits people with multimorbidity.
Evidence indicates that exercise increases muscle strength, improves cardiovascular and metabolic health, and boosts mood by reducing visceral fat mass and activating a wide range of anti-inflammatory processes in the body. A key feature of many chronic diseases is inflammation, but exercise may disrupt inflammation to elicit its beneficial effects.
The authors of the meta-analysis reviewed data from 23 randomized controlled studies that investigated the health effects of exercise in people with multimorbidity, defined as having two or more chronic health conditions (arthritis of the knee or hip, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, depression, heart failure, ischemic heart disease, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). The study participants were between the ages of 50 and 80 years. The average duration of the studies was 12 weeks and included a variety of exercise protocols, including aquatic exercise, strength training, aerobic training, and tai chi, performed two to three times per week.
The analysis revealed that exercise therapy interventions improved physical fitness (determined by walking distance and speed) and decreased symptoms of anxiety and depression, especially among younger adults. The interventions didn’t increase knee, arm, or back pain, or falls and fatigue. Study participants who engaged in regular exercise were less likely to be hospitalized, develop pneumonia, or experience extreme fatigue.
These findings suggest that exercise exerts beneficial effects on people with multimorbidity and serves as a viable option in managing their conditions.
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Increased visceral fat impairs cognition through chronic microglial activation mediated by IL-1 beta release [animal research] www.sciencedaily.com
Scientists find that visceral fat, a type of adipose tissue that produces high levels of inflammatory signals known as adipokines, impair learning and memory in mice by setting off an inflammatory cascade mediated by the release of IL-1 beta, which crosses the blood-brain barrier leading to chronic activation of microglia.
From the article:
“We have identified a specific signal that is generated in visceral fat, released into the blood that gets through the blood brain barrier and into the brain where it activates microglia and impairs cognition.”
Visceral fat as the ring leader:
They looked further and found that just transplanting the visceral fat caused essentially the same impact as obesity resulting from a high-fat diet, including significantly increasing brain levels of interleukin-1 beta and activating microglia. Mice missing interleukin-1 beta’s receptor on the microglia also were protected from these brain ravages.
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To measure cognitive ability, the scientists looked at mice’s ability to navigate a water maze after 12 weeks on a high- or low-fat diet. They found it took the normal, or wild type, mice consuming the higher fat diet as well as the visceral transplant recipients with NLRP3 intact longer to negotiate the water maze. In fact, while they could reach a platform they could see, they had trouble finding one beneath the water’s surface that they had been taught to find. Mice with the interleukin-1 receptor knocked out, could find it just fine, Stranahan says.
The high-fat diet, transplant mice also had weaker connections, or synapses, between neurons involved in learning and memory. Mice on a high-fat diet but missing NLRP3 were spared these changes, like mice on a low-fat diet.