Research

Hormonal

Higher visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is independently associated with greater impairment in left ventricular peak circumferential strain (Ecc), indicating reduced myocardial contractility, regardless of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) or other regional fat depots.

Focus on reducing visceral fat (belly fat) rather than just total body weight. Even if you are not obese, high visceral fat is linked to early heart muscle dysfunction. Cardiovascular exercise and weight management are key to reducing this specific fat depot.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In adjusted analysis, higher amount of VAT was significantly associated with higher Ecc suggesting greater impairment in LV strain after adjustment for traditional CVD risk factors... The association remained significant after further adjustment for CRF... and other fat depots
Nitin Kondamudi et al. · Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance · 2021

Why this rating

Large population-based cohort (n=1089), rigorous adjustment for confounders, but cross-sectional design limits causal inference.

Source

Regional adiposity, cardiorespiratory fitness, and left ventricular strain: an analysis from the Dallas Heart Study

Nitin Kondamudi et al. · Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance · 2021

DOI 10.1186/s12968-021-00757-w

cross_sectional · n=1089Cited 11×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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