Research
Mixed
Epicardial and perivascular fat act as a protective vasocrine organ in healthy states by releasing adiponectin and relaxing factors, but in metabolic disease, their expansion leads to hypoxia, inflammation, and a shift toward prothrombotic and proinflammatory signaling that promotes atherosclerosis.
Fat around your heart is not just inert storage; it actively communicates with your arteries. In metabolic disease, this fat becomes inflamed and harmful. Weight loss and exercise can reduce this fat and its inflammatory output, improving vascular health.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Epicardial and perivascular fat depots may exert a protective modulation of vascular function and energy partition in a healthy situation, but their expansion turns them into an adverse lipotoxic, prothrombotic, and proinflammatory organ.
Why this rating
Strong observational data from multiple imaging studies and mechanistic data from tissue analysis.
Source
Myocardial, Perivascular, and Epicardial Fat
Patricia Iozzo · Diabetes Care · 2011
DOI 10.2337/dc11-s250
narrative_reviewCited 269×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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