How Bad Is Belly Fat For Your Health?

Scientists develop a new technique to assess the health risks

• Researchers have developed a new non-invasive method of measuring belly fat
• The thickness of abdominal fat could be used to work out the chances of disease
• Abdominal obesity is linked to heart failure, type 2 diabetes and heart disease
• One in four UK adults are overweight or obese, while one third of Americans are

The size of excess belly fat could be used to assess your chances of having diseases such as heart failure and type 2 diabetes. Scientists have developed a new technique to assess the health risks posed by abdominal obesity, or fat that accumulates around the stomach.

Estimating the thickness of the fat around the abdomen could be used to work out the likelihood of suffering from obesity-related diseases, according to researchers. Abdominal obesity is linked to heart failure and metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that lead to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

One in four adults in the UK are overweight or obese, while one in three of adults living in the US are, according to government statistics. 

The size of the spare tyres that hang around your abdomen could be used to assess your chances of having diseases such as heart failure and type 2 diabetes, new research suggests

What is the new technique? 

Lead scientist Professor Jin Keun Seo, from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, said: 'Recent studies have shown that abdominal obesity is linked with diseases such as congestive heart failure and metabolic syndrome. 'Static electrical impedance tomography, or EIT, could be employed as a non-invasive surrogate of disease progression in these conditions.'

EIT is a non-invasive type of medical imaging that picks up on the electrical activity of different body parts to gather images of what they look like. The imaging technique also provides real-time data without using ionising radiation, which makes it less harmful to patients than other imaging techniques. 

Prof Seo added: 'EIT is more advantageous since it is non-ionising and can hence be used for continuous patient self-monitoring to track body fat status in daily routines. 'EIT is a low cost, portable, and easy-to-use bedside technique to image electrical conductivity distribution.'

A simplified image taken using the new technique. Red colour represents abdominal fat, blue shows muscle, white shows bone, pink shows visceral region, and green shows the organs

How can it be used to identify disease risk? 

Professor Seo said that since electrical conductivity of biological tissue depends on its cell structure, it can help image different tissues in the body and distinguish them from each other. The researchers said EIT imaging could be used to get more accurate measurements of the thickness of the fat that hangs around the abdomen. 

This could allow doctors to make more accurate evaluations about the potential risk of conditions linked to abdominal obesity. Abnormally high deposition of fat tissue in the abdominal area has been associated with disorders such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

The research was published in the Journal of Imaging Sciences.

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