When most of us think of what it means to be fat, we see the big belly spilling over the belt buckle, the fat, plump face that looks bloated, and the jowls hanging below the chin.
But some of the fat we might be carrying can be hidden inside our body, unseen. This kind of fat, known as visceral fat, is packed up inside the abdominal cavity. It may be hidden from view, but studies show that it can be more dangerous than the kind of fat we can plainly see.
When this internal, or visceral, fat builds up inside your body, wrapped around vital organs such as the pancreas, the liver, and the intestines, it can adversely affect how well your hormones are able to do their job.
If the body is storing a lot of visceral fat inside the abdominal cavity, it can lead to insulin resistance and, if left unchecked, eventually lead to type 2 diabetes.
The problem is that because the fat is hidden from view, it requires a bit more work to uncover it. The best way to see it is through an MRI or CT scan, but these tests are expensive and can be inconvenient, which is one of the reasons they are not routinely used by doctors to check their patients for type 2 diabetes risk. And even if they were used, they don’t provide the kind of precise number-based result a blood pressure test or HbA1C test would give. They still require the interpretation and analysis from a doctor.
Fortunately, there’s a more user-friendly way of determining if you are carrying around too much visceral fat. The first step is to simply ask yourself if you have a pear-shaped body or an apple-shaped one.
If you are pear-shaped, most of your fat is located in the lower part of your body and it’s likely that most of it is probably subcutaneous, meaning it’s under the skin, the kind of fat you can feel by pinching yourself and feeling it in the fold of skin between your fingers.
While this kind of fat can be difficult to get rid of, it’s not considered as detrimental to your health as the fat found around the mid-section or abdomen, the belly fat that gives your body the shape of an apple.
If you are apple-shaped, this is the first clue that you may be carrying around more visceral fat than you should be. Studies have shown that a larger waist size can indicate unhealthy amounts of visceral fat, the kind of fat that increases your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Because this visceral fat can generate its own hormones and other biochemicals similar to the way an organ does, it can impede the normal and healthy functioning of your body’s cells sensitivity to insulin.
Eventually, as the fat builds up and accumulates in the abdominal cavity, these biochemicals generated by the visceral fat will lead to insulin resistance. At this point, the body’s muscle cells will no longer respond effectively to normal levels of insulin, locking out the glucose and leaving it in the bloodstream, raising the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Although one’s genetic disposition plays a role in what kind of body shape you have and the likelihood that you may be destined to have to wage the battle against visceral fat for most of your life, you are not without weapons to fight back.
Diet and exercise are two aspects of your life that are directly under your control so they need to be your first two top priorities in staying healthy. Unlike many other diseases, getting diagnosed with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes doesn’t have to be a final verdict that is accepted passively. It can be managed and controlled with the right diet and exercise plan.
References:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/abdominal-fat-and-what-to-do-about-it
https://news.yale.edu/2000/09/22/study-stress-may-cause-excess-abdominal-fat-otherwise-slender-women
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/well/live/do-i-carry-a-dangerous-amount-of-belly-fat.html
https://endocrinenews.endocrine.org/the-dangers-of-visceral-fat/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2585758/
