T2D and CAD risks from specific types of body fat

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Eddy Edson

Eddy Edson

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
https://twitter.com/x/status/1615450037902794776

Pretty cool study ...

- Increasing visceral fat strongly associated with both T2D and CAD at any BMI level.
- Opposite is the case for butt&thigh fat.
- Using AI possible to accurately measure these different fat volumes using just 2-D body imaging.

Of course leaves open the question of where did we folks with no butts & high tendency to build belly fat come from?? So I stick to my explanation, in which hominids with bony butts had an evolutionary advantage because they would spend less time lounging on them & so would be less likely to be prey for sabre tooth tigers pouncing from the shadows.
 
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Since losing a lot of weight I am now sitting on bones most of the time (I had a rather larger derriere before).
It certainly means I don't sit down for long periods of time as it's quite uncomfortable!
 
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harbottle said:
Since losing a lot of weight I am now sitting on bones most of the time (I had a rather larger derriere before).
It certainly means I don't down for long periods of time as it's quite uncomfortable!
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Well done - dramatically reduced yr risk of being pounced upon by an apex predator!
 
How about those of us that were just completely fat?
And do man boobs count, because if they do, I've had it!
 
I quite miss my moobs. Nothing to fondle anymore.
 
It's an interesting study, as I had to lose a lot of weight to finally remove my visceral fat.
It was either the last to go, or possibly there is a difference again in the speed of loss, as to which fat goes first in different body types.
 
When I lost weight, it seemed to go first around my belly (I've ended up with what I called 'massive dents' around the midriff.). The Moobs and Butt cheeks quickly followed, and then face.
 
The main figure from the paper is worth looking at. For legibility, just repeating one panel from it:

1674086808814.png

Looking at T2D risks for males (other panels show females and CAD risks, but the trends are the same in each case).

The chart on the left is for "healthy" BMI people; overweight in the middle chart; obese on the right.

The bars are show risks by level of different fat deposits adjusted for BMI: red = visceral fat; yellow = subcutaneous abdominal; blue = butt/thigh fat adjusted. Lightest shading for bottom quintile; heaviest shading for top quintile.

Note the distinction between visceral fat and subutaneous abdominal fat: ie fat packed around internal organs vs fat tucked under the skin.

The visceral/subcutaneous/butt&thigh fat measures here are all relative to BMI and together should be read as how body fat gets divided up between these categories (approximately).

So eg in the left most chart, the heaviest red shading applies to healthy-BMI people whose (small amount of) body fat is more highly concentrated than average in the visceral area, and so.

Overall, without looking down to this level of how fat gets divided up, there's a clear trend of T2D risk increasing from healthy-BMI to obese-BMI: the bars get bigger as you move from left chart to right char. Just as you'd expect.

But the picture is more nuanced when you drill down into fat distribution.

The very best place to be in the figure is the lightly-shaded red bar in the left-most chart: "healthy" BMI, low visceral fat relative to BMI => low 1.6% T2D risk.

The very worst place is the heavily-shaded red bar in the right-most chart: "obese" BMI, high visceral fat relative to BMI => high 15.3% T2D risk.

Again, nothing unexpected.

But also note that it's better to be BMI-obese but with low visceral fat relative to BMI, than to be BMI-heatlhy with high visceral fat relative to BMI: 5.3% vs 6.6%.

Anyway, it's cool to see this kind of quantification of relative risks, highlighting that "skinny fat" or whatever you want to call it is a real category which needs the same kind of T2D/CAD screening and attention as obesity.

Even the simplified (and also very cool) AI-based classification system employed by these guys requires an MRI scan to identify the category but maybe that becomes justified as the risk levels become clearer ...
 
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EmmaL76 said:
My super dooper scales are telling me I have 2% visceral fat. If I’ve understood all this correctly does this mean I will live forever ?
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One issue is where yr super dooper scales sit on the toy <-> scientific instrument spectrum. The ones I've seen rate at approx the same level as fortune telling machines.

Whatever, in terms of this study, it's not just the level of visceral fat but how it compares to BMI. So theoretically if your BMI were very very low maybe 2% visceral fat might imply elevated risk.

But that seems very unlikley and I'd say you're all set for immortality unless you get eaten by a pack of marauding hyenas.
 
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Eddy Edson said:
One issue is where yr super dooper scales sit on the toy <-> scientific instrument spectrum. The ones I've seen rate at approx the same level as fortune telling machines.

Whatever, in terms of this study, it's not just the level of visceral fat but how it compares to BMI. So theoretically if your BMI were very very low maybe 2% visceral fat might imply elevated risk.

But that seems very unlikley and I'd say you're all set for immortality unless you get eaten by a pack of marauding hyenas.
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Well they were £24.99 from Amazon and came with no English instructions so I think they should be pretty darn accurate :confused:
 
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