A new study have recently warned people who are genetically inclined to having abdominal fat may either cause or relate to the cause of type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. The research has found that for those people who are genetically at a greater risk of having a higher waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index are likely to have an increased risk of developing these conditions. However, researchers have noted that although the findings obtained from the previous observational studies have indicated that abdominal fat is associated with type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, experts have said that it remains unclear whether these associations represent a causal relationship.
Belly Fat May Lead To Heart Disease And More
In one of his statements reported by The Pioneer, Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston said that people may vary in terms of their distribution of body fat; some put fat in their belly, which is usually referred to as abdominal adiposity and some in their hips and thighs. Dr. Kathiresan adds that they have also tested whether genetic predisposition to abdominal adiposity was associated with the risk for Type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease and the study findings turned out to be an affirmation of their proposition. Along with increases in blood lipids, blood glucose and systolic blood pressure, the study finds that genetic predisposition to abdominal adiposity is associated with significant increases when it comes to the incidence of Type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease.
Furthermore, it was found that no association was seen between the genetic risk score and lifestyle factors and testing confirmed that only the abdominal adiposity effects of the identified gene variants were associated with cardiometabolic risk. Another expert, Connor Emdin, from the Massachusetts General Hospital said that the lack of connection between the body type genetic risk score and confounding factors such as diet and smoking would have the ability to allegedly carry out a strong evidence that abdominal adiposity itself contributes to causing Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Study Conclusion
According to reports revealed by Medical News Today, Kathiresan and his team concludes that although a substantial focus of drug development has been focused towards therapeutics in order to reduce overall adiposity, it was found that there has been little effort toward the development of therapies that modify body fat distribution to reduce abdominal adiposity.
