HealthFrom cancer to increased risk of heart attack or dementia: all the risks that your beer belly entails

From cancer to increased risk of heart attack or dementia: all the risks that your beer belly entails

Although fat is important for good metabolic health, where you store it can have different health consequences.

The amount of fat under the skin, the kind you can grab or pinch, is called subcutaneous fat. And when this excess accumulates in your thighs or buttocks pear-shaped people— can make you desperate aesthetically, but it poses few risks to your well-being.

On the other hand, when it is located deep in the abdomen, under the abdominal muscles, it is called visceral fat. More common in “apple” people —those who accumulate volume around the waist—, carries serious health risks.

Because? The abdominal fat is more resistant to insulinthus carrying an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. It also releases more triglycerides into the blood in response to signals from stress hormones, compared to fat from the hips and thighs, explains an article in The Conversation. Elevated blood triglyceride levels are associated with an increased risk of heart disease.

The Cardiovascular Dangers of Your Beer Belly

A Waist greater than 40 inches for men or 35 inches for women It poses a potential risk of accumulating abdominal fat, according to the Spanish Heart Foundation.

And beyond your concern about how your clothes fit, this “beer belly” is a major factor in chronic disease, including myocardial infarction, one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Although even those who are of adequate weight can harbor dangerous amounts in their abdomen.

This was revealed, for example, by a 2018 study, collected by the British Heart Association, which found that people with a normal weight who accumulated most of their fat around the waist they had more than double the risk of suffering problems such as heart attack, stroke, bypass surgery or death, compared to those with overweight who did not have this localized excess.

Having fat around the stomach had an 87% higher risk of problems, compared to those who did not carry weight around the waist. The participants had a 52% more likely to suffer from diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol if they had excess abdominal fat.

“This fat is associated with greater metabolic alterations in the form of glucose intolerance, decreased insulin sensitivity, alteration of the lipid profile as well as a greater influence on inflammatory processes than fat accumulated in other areas, which leads to an increase in cardiovascular risk,” explains Dr. Ángel Moya, president of the Electrophysiology and Arrhythmias Section of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC).

Regardless of weight, the people who have more fat around the abdomen have a higher risk of dying sooner

One of the largest and longest studies to date followed 16 years of 44,000 middle-aged women. It found that even women with a “normal weight” BMI (body mass index) under 25 had a higher risk of dying the higher their percentage of fat around the waist.

In fact, for every 10 cm more waist circumference, the number of deaths increases by 11%, as revealed by a 2020 review with data on 2.5 million people.

They also increase the chances of cancer and dementia.

Visceral fat may increase the risk of breast cancer, as found by research on 3,460 postmenopausal women between the ages of 50 and 79 with a normal BMI. Those with more body fat were 1.88 times more likely to develop the tumor than women with less fat. When this accumulated in the waist, they were 1.89 times more likely to develop invasive breast cancer than those with less fat in this region.

Also, the results of a study of Nature suggest that the Waist circumference is a predictor of colon cancer risk. greater than the BMI. In both sexes, a greater girth was associated with a 2-fold increased risk of colon cancer and was evident for both proximal and distal colons.

Among possible explanations, belly fat appears to encourage the release of a protein called fibroblast growth factor 2, which can turn a non-cancerous cell into a cancerous one, a 2017 study found.

The dementia is another of the potential dangers to those exposed by this excess adipose tissue, as evidenced by research that analyzed more than 6,000 participants for an average of 36 years. At that time, those with the greatest abdominal obesity in midlife were almost 3 times more likely to develop dementia 3 decades later.

Although both genetic and lifestyle factors are involved in its appearance, there are things that can be done to reduce abdominal fat. Change certain eating habits to ensure a healthier diet and including exercise will reduce your waistline and with it these health risks.

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