Research

Hormonal

Obesity is characterized by systemic chronic low-grade inflammation driven by adipose tissue-derived mediators (adipokines) and infiltrating immune cells, which contributes to insulin resistance and metabolic complications.

If you have excess abdominal fat, your body is likely in a state of chronic, low-grade inflammation that increases your risk for diabetes and heart disease. This is driven by hormones released from fat cells and immune cells invading fat tissue. Weight loss significantly lowers these inflammatory markers, reducing metabolic risk.

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Low-grade inflammation is a characteristic of the obese state, and adipose tissue releases many inflammatory mediators... Obese people have higher circulating concentrations of many inflammatory markers than lean people do, and these are believed to play a role in causing insulin resistance and other metabolic disturbances.
Philip C. Calder et al. · British Journal Of Nutrition · 2011

Why this rating

The paper is a comprehensive review by ILSI Europe citing numerous human and animal studies, establishing a strong consensus on the mechanism.

Source

Dietary factors and low-grade inflammation in relation to overweight and obesity

Philip C. Calder et al. · British Journal Of Nutrition · 2011

DOI 10.1017/s0007114511005460

narrative_reviewCited 1,068×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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