Research
Mixed
Genetic similarity strongly predicts the magnitude of abdominal visceral fat loss in response to negative energy balance and exercise.
If you are struggling to lose belly fat despite exercise and diet, your genetics may dictate a slower rate of visceral fat mobilization compared to others. However, this specific exercise protocol (moderate intensity, constant intake) is proven to reduce visceral fat significantly regardless of genetic background.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Interestingly, within-pair resemblance for the loss of CT fat was highest for abdominal visceral fat with 11.7 times more variance between pairs than within pairs and an intraclass coefficient of 0.84 (p < 0.01).
Why this rating
Strong statistical evidence within the twin cohort, but limited generalizability to non-twins.
Source
The Response to Exercise with Constant Energy Intake in Identical Twins
Claude Bouchard et al. · Obesity Research · 1994
DOI 10.1002/j.1550-8528.1994.tb00087.x
rct · n=14Cited 320×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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