Having a lot of this “visceral fat” is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes, said Dr. Kerry Stewart, an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
It’s not clear whether switching to a diet that contains more unsaturated fats, such as those found in vegetable oils, will reduce or prevent visceral fat buildup, Stewart said.
However, there are many reasons to eat diets low in saturated fat, including reduced risk of heart disease and high cholesterol, according to Stewart.
“Our study would suggest that less visceral fat is another reason,” Stewart said.
The research was scheduled to be presented Sunday in Chicago at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
In the study, Stewart and his colleagues asked 84 people between the ages of 55 and 75 to record their diet over a three-day period. The participants were non-smokers who did not have heart disease or diabetes and lived a sedentary lifestyle.
The researchers then performed abdominal scans to measure the amount of visceral fat and measured the patients’ waist circumference in relation to hip size.
The larger the waist in relation to hip size (in other words, those with paunches) were more likely to have large amounts of visceral fat-filler organs.
And a diet higher in saturated fat relative to unsaturated fat was associated with more visceral fat.
Visceral fat, unlike the fat that accumulates just under the skin, is not visible. According to Stewart, men tend to have more visceral fat than women, even though they have the same amount of belly fat. This could partly explain why men develop heart disease at a younger age than women, Stewart said.
This study is part of a larger one examining the effect of exercise on heart health in middle-aged and older people and will also test the effects of exercise on visceral fat levels.
