Physical inactivity, age and overeating may cause fat to accumulate on all parts of your body. While any excess fat is unattractive, the fat that accumulates around the abdominal area can endanger your health. Some doctors even believe that taking waist measurements is more important than weighing to evaluate the health of their patients.
Types of Fat
Your body has two types of fat. Subcutaneous fat sits under your skin and accumulates on the hips, thighs, buttocks and arms. Visceral fat is a deeper type of fat, and accumulates around your abdominal area. Its proximity to your internal organs makes visceral fat a serious health risk. Women with waists wider than 35 inches and men with waists wider than 40 inches are at risk of developing serious health conditions. While excess visceral fat is more prevalent among men, women are not immune.
Erectile Dysfunction
While impotence treatments such as Viagra, Cialis and Levitra flood the pharmaceutical market, physicians including Dr. Harry Fisch, director of the Male Reproductive Center at Columbia University Medical Center of New York Presbyterian Hospital, suggest that reducing belly fat may have similar results without medication. In a February 2008 "New York Times" article, Dr. Fisch explained that the same factors that clog the arteries to the heart also clog the blood vessels that supply the sexual organs. Visceral fat lowers a man's testosterone level. Testosterone levels, as well as libido, rise when men lose their excess belly fat.
Insulin Resistance
Insulin resistance is another consequence of excess belly fat. Visceral fat is located near the portal vein, which carries blood from the intestines to the liver. It pumps out immune system chemicals called cytokines that cause insulin resistance and chronic inflammation. Insulin resistance prevents your muscles and liver cells from properly responding to the hormone that carries glucose into your body's cells. As glucose levels rise, the risk of diabetes increases.
Muscular Problems
The location of excess belly fat in the center of your body may cause you to alter your gait, distort your posture and lose your balance. The extra weight may stress the vertebral discs and cause serious back problems. Abdominal fat may also indirectly cause wrist problems. In an article in the "Cleveland Clinical Journal of Medicine," Dr. Michelle M. Hooper explains that to get out of a chair, big-bellied people may need to move their legs closer to their bodies and press down against the seat with their hands. This may put too much pressure on the nerves of the weight-bearing wrists, causing injury.
References
- UAB Medicine; Belly Fat; March 10, 2008
- "USA Today"; Belly Full of Danger; Nanci Hellmich; Feb. 25, 2003
- "The New York Times"; First Come Erectile Ills, Then Heart Troubles; Peter Jaret; Feb. 29, 2008
- Harvard Health Letter: Abdominal Fat and What to Do About It
- "Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine"; Tending to the Musculoskeletal Problems of Obesity; Michelle M. Hooper; Sept. 2006
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