Hormonal
Excess visceral adipose tissue is a primary driver of cardiometabolic risk, independent of total body fat or BMI, by causing insulin resistance, atherogenic dyslipidemia, and inflammation.
Do not rely on BMI alone to assess your health risk. If you have a large waist circumference, especially combined with high triglycerides, you may have dangerous visceral fat even if your weight is normal. Prioritize reducing abdominal fat through lifestyle changes, as this specific fat type drives heart disease and diabetes risk more than total body weight does.
Excess intra-abdominal adipose tissue accumulation, often termed visceral obesity, is part of a phenotype including dysfunctional subcutaneous adipose tissue expansion and ectopic triglyceride storage closely related to clustering cardiometabolic risk factors.
Why this rating
Based on a comprehensive review of decades of epidemiological, imaging, and metabolic studies cited in a high-impact physiological review.
Source
Pathophysiology of Human Visceral Obesity: An Update
André Tchernof et al. · Physiological Reviews · 2013
DOI 10.1152/physrev.00033.2011
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