Visceral Fat

For you middle-aged and beyond guys, this page is one of my most imporant and can save both you and your erections.  "You don't know the power of the dark side" until you start looking at what fat can do to you. Sure, it can keep you warm in the winter, but it all goes downhill from there.

Visceral fat, i.e. fat in the stomach area that raps around your internal organs, is what is particularly nasty for us guys, because it is the fat that leads to insulin resistance and decreased blood flow.  FMD (Flow Mediated Dilation) is the medical term for decreased blood flow from your precious endothelium and researchers have found that even 10 pounds of extra fat leads to substantially decreased FMD. [1] That means less blood flow and into your arteries and your penis when you're trying to do your solemn bedroom duty.  The title of this study was "Modest Visceral Fat Gain Causes Endothelial Dysfunction in Healthy Humans" and, if you've read this site much, you know that life for any male is dependent on the all-important endothelium.

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Visceral fat also leads to insulin resistance and Metabolic Syndrome (and eventually diabetes, heart disease and so on).  It is very correlated with the inflammatory marker TNF-alpha and, more directly, with raising FFA (Free Fatty Acid) levels in the liver and blood.  It is these elevated FFA's that will lead you to the land of insulin resistance. [2]

All of this leads to the viscious cycle that so many of us struggle with in middle age, because visceral fat and cortisol are good buddies.  Studies show that visceral fat has four times the cortisol receptors that subcutaneous fat has. [3]  Also, remember those cortisone injections that some athletes receive for joint issues? Cortisone is converted in the body to cortisol by an enzyme that is stored in fat tissues. So the fatter you are, the more cortisol, in general, that you will have. Furthermore, visceral fat has been shown to have higher concentrations of this enzyme!  Elevated cortisol levels increase appetite and, again, you have yet another make-you-fatter-and-fatter factor working against you.

Here is where the vicious cycle kicks in as well:  many studies have shown that stress and cortisol are associated with visceral fat accumulation. [4]  Cortisol increases visceral fat and visceral fat increases cortisol.  It doesn't get any uglier than this.  Well, actually, it does because cortisol decreases testosterone and lowered testosterone leads to muscle loss which will also make you fatter still.

So how do you get off this runaway train?  It's not as hard as you think and here are the three key ways to lose that extra visceral fat:

1.  Strength and/or weight training.  This should be number one in your visceral fat fighting strategies. Strength training builds muscle and that has been shown to directly fight visceral fat and insulin resistance. [5]

2.  Aerobic training.  A recent metanalysis showed that aerobic exercise decreased visceral fat in a dose-dependent manner (for those w/o metabolic disorders). Another interesting thing: the study found that just exercise with no accompanying weight loss led to decreased visceral fat. In other words, you can slowly lose visceral fat just by exercising even without trying to lose weight.  And when weight loss was added, visceral fat melted off rapidly. [6]

3.  Sleep.  Watch your sleep.  One recent study showed that those getting less than five hours of sleep had significantly accumulated visceral fat deposits. [7]

4.  Medications.  A number of pharmaceuticals increase visceral fat, including Paxil (and other antidepressants), lithium, Depo-Provera - tell your woman if she's on it. [8]

5. Stress. The stress hormone cortisol is a known visceral fat booster. See my link on Stress Management for ways to decrease cortisol and stress.

6. Tart Cherry Juice.  In animal studies, tart cherry juice reduced visceral fat. [9]  This is interesting, because Tart Cherry Juice reduced TNF-alpha (and IL-6) levels in this animal study.

Sure, there are other things like green tea that will give you a boost in losing visceral fat, but the above three itens are your Big Three Gut Busters.  As always, the bottom line is about lifestyle. There's no way to melt away that Beer Gut, except to pay the price and do what you need to do in the gym or on the road, track, court and then sleep it off at night. Well, and lay off the beer...

REFERENCES:

1) J Am Coll Cardiol, 2010; 56:662-666, "Modest Visceral Fat Gain Causes Endothelial Dysfunction in Healthy Humans"

2) Diabetes Metab Rev, 5:83–109, "Biology of regional body fat distribution: relationship to non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus"; Lancet, 1963, "The glucose-fatty acid cycle: its role in insulin sensitivity and the metabolic disturbances of diabetes mellitus"

3) Psychosomatic Medicine 62:623-632, 2000, "Stress and body shape: stress-induced cortisol secretion is consistently greater among women with central fat"

4) Obes Res. 1996 May;4(3):245-52, "Mental distress, obesity and body fat distribution in middle-aged men"

5) J Appl Physiol. 1994;77:614–620, "Effects of strength training on total and regional body composition in older men"

6) Int J Obes (Lond), 2007 Dec;31(12):1786-97. Epub 2007 Jul 17, "A dose-response relation between aerobic exercise and visceral fat reduction: systematic review of clinical trials"

7) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100301091302.htm

8) Ladies Home Journal, "The Over-40 Factor", Dec 10/Jan 11 issue, p. 133.

9) Journal of Medicinal Food, 2009, 12(5):935-42, "Regular tart cherry intake alters abdominal adiposity, adipose gene transcription, and inflammation in obesity-prone rats fed a high fat diet"