|
Laziness
Makes for Dangerous Fat
Everyone knows that lazing around can lead to a growing
potbelly, but U.S. researchers say that couch potatoes build
up dangerous pockets of fat more quickly than anyone thought.
But the good news -- or perhaps the bad news -- is that
vigorous exercise can take it off pretty quickly, the team
at Duke University in North Carolina reported.
The team of experts looked at visceral fat -- that hidden
flab tucked in among the organs. It is often invisible,
but unlike an obvious paunch or heavy thighs, it is linked
with insulin resistance -- pre-diabetes -- and heart disease.
Speaking to a meeting of the American College of Sports
Medicine in San Francisco, Cris Slentz said he was surprised
at how rapidly fat accumulated deep in the abdomens of patients
who did not exercise.
Volunteers who did no exercise had an 8.6 percent increase
in visceral fat after eight months, while those who exercised
the most lost 8.1 percent of their visceral fat, Slentz
said.
"The results of our investigation show that in sedentary
overweight adults, who continue to choose a sedentary lifestyle,
the detrimental effects are worse and more rapid than we
previously thought," Slentz said in a statement.
"We probably should not have been surprised since this
simply mirrors the increasingly rapid rise in obesity prevalence
seen in the U.S., where at present two out of three adults
are overweight or obese."
Women gained fat twice as quickly as the men did, Slentz
said.
Exercise takes the fat away quickly, but it has to be pretty
vigorous, Slentz and colleagues found.
"Participants who exercised at a level equivalent to
17 miles of jogging each week saw significant declines in
visceral fat, subcutaneous abdominal fat and total abdominal
fat," Slentz said.
"While this may seem like a lot of exercise, our previously
sedentary and overweight subjects were quite capable of
doing this amount."
They studied 170 volunteers, putting them into four groups
who got no exercise, small amounts of moderate exercise
equivalent to walking 11 miles a week, low amounts of vigorous
exercise equivalent to jogging 11 miles a week and a lot
of vigorous exercise equivalent to jogging 17 miles a week.
Article Source: Reuters Health
Article Author: N/A
Net Reference 89
|
