The difference between visceral and subcutaneous fat in central obesity.

Factual Questions
1

I’m confused. All the publications I’ve researched point to central obesity being far more dire to one’s health than other types of adipose distribution. It’s the old “apple-shaped” versus “pear-shaped” in women’s figures. I don’t know what the standard comparison is for men.

All these documents talk about central obesity - that is fat deposited around the waist. A few documents mention visceral fat versus subcutaneous fat. Visceral fat is the fat which surrounds internal organs, inside the peritoneal cavity. Subcutaneous fat is the fat which lies above the abdominal muscles and below the skin.

I have seen one documentary, one sumo wrestlers, which stated that while central obesity is, in general, very hard on one’s health, the reason sumo wrestlers were so much healthier than people of similar weight is because they carried their adipose tissue subcutaneously instead of viscerally. I’ve seen one other article which stated that, in men, visceral fat is lost more quickly than subcutaneous fat during a diet.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve heard.

Now, as far as I can tell, while I am definitely apple-shaped instead of pear-shaped, (and losing slowly but surely, thank you), most of my belly fat appears to be subcutaneous. That is, I can find my abdominal muscles, and they are under the vast majority of the fat I carry.

Has there been any research into the differences between visceral and subcutaneous abdominal fat? Is there any difference in the health risks? Does one prove to be easier to lose than the other?

The answer won’t change my weight loss efforts. It’s eat less and exercise more for pretty much the rest of my life. I am curious, though, because it strikes me as an important sub-topic to explore in the fight against obesity and obesity-related illnesses.

2

Take a peek at this recent review contrasting visceral and subcutaneous fat (or at least the abstract which is rich with relevant information). I believe you’ll find it quite helpful.

Please post a follow up if there are any points which you’d like to discuss (not that I’ll know the answers, but I can fake it).

3

Wow. That’s one heck of an article to find for this question! Impressive.

So it does seem that visceral fat is much more predictive of adverse outcomes than subcutaneous fat but that it also is lost earlier in the process of losing weight. That’s consistent with (and explains to no small degree) research that shows that someone who is significantly or morbidly obese who maintains an even modest weight loss of 5% of their body weight has significant reduction in health outcome risks.

(It wouldn’t surprise me to see future research that shows that exercise helps maintain the preferential loss of visceral fat with greater amount of total fat loss.)