HEALTH TIPS: Inside fat

Health Tip – Audio Version - Inside fat
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Physical Activity: Energize Your Life! (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion)

We can see fat on our outside. But we also have fat we can’t see – called visceral fat – around organs in the belly. Increasing visceral fat increases the odds of excess weight, higher blood sugar levels, cholesterol problems, and high blood pressure. And this raises the risk of heart disease.

But Cris Slentz of Duke University Medical Center, who used imaging to check inside fat, says exercise works against inside fat. People who did no exercise gained fat; people who did some exercise gained none, and people who did more lost visceral fat.

“Thirty minutes a day most days – preferably all days of the week – people ought to be walking or doing some activity. We really do need this. Inactivity is just killing us.”

The study in the Journal of Applied Physiology was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: August, 15 2006