#visceral-fat

#visceral-fat

All the weight loss tactics I'd grown up internalizing - painstakingly tracking calories and steps, feeling "naughty" for eating half a cupcake, pretending raw almonds are a treat - didn't just present a challenge to my soul. I was also pretty sure they didn't work for me. So, I got a body composition analysis: a complimentary service offered through my membership at Life Time Fitness, an athletic club. On average, membership costs between $100 and more than $330 in the US.

A large study led by scientists at McMaster University has found that fat stored deep inside the abdomen and liver can quietly injure arteries, even in people who seem healthy on the outside. The research, published on October 17, 2025, in Communications Medicine, questions the long-standing use of body-mass index (BMI) as a reliable indicator of obesity and heart risk. It offers new evidence that the fat people cannot see may be just as dangerous as the weight they can.

Being overweight has long been linked to heart conditions and type 2 diabetes, but even people who look thinner could be at risk, researchers suggest. A new study led by researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, explains there is such a thing as being skinny-fat - someone who appears to be healthy and slim but in fact has hidden fat deep inside their organs.

"When I did a body composition test at 36, I had way more body fat than I expected," Cheema says. "That pushed me to change my workouts and eating patterns in ways that improved my health-something BMI alone wouldn't have prompted."

When injuries or infections occur, the immune system mounts a protective response by releasing cells and proteins to affected tissues. This complex cascade is called inflammation. But as we age, inflammation gradually increases and becomes persistent instead of being a state that occurs only when things go wrong. Among the cells that that help to regulate this inflammageing are a variety of macrophages - white blood cells that hoover up pathogens and cellular debris - that reside in fat tissue.