Smoking increases the amount of belly fat. It can also increase the level of visceral fat, which is found around the organs.
- Smoking increases the amount of belly fat.
- But it is also associated with a higher level of visceral fat.
- Located around vital organs, it increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and dementia.
Some people are afraid of gaining weight when they quit smoking, so they put it off. However, stopping smoking could help them lose it. Danish researchers reveal that smoking increases the amount of abdominal and visceral fat. They discovered it in a study, the results of which appeared in the journal Addiction.
How to understand the effects of smoking on body fat?
This team from the NNF Center for Basic Metabolic Research at the University of Copenhagen used previous studies to identify genes linked to smoking habits and body fat distribution. In total, this represented more than two million participants. Then they analyzed this genetic information to determine whether people with genes associated with smoking tended to have different body fat distribution. Finally, they took into account other factors, such as alcohol consumption or socioeconomic background, to ensure that any link found between smoking and body fat distribution was truly due to smoking itself. same and not to other factors. To analyze their data, they used a statistical analysis technique called Mendelian randomization (MR) to determine whether there was a cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and the presence of abdominal fat.
Smoking: an increase in abdominal and visceral fat
According to their findings, smoking influences the amount of abdominal fat, independent of other factors including alcohol consumption or socioeconomic status. “This study finds that starting to smoke and smoking over the course of one’s life could lead to increased abdominal fat, as shown by waist-to-hip ratio measurementsobserves Dr. Germán D. Carrasquilla, lead author of the research. In further analysis, we also discovered that the type of fat that is increasing is more likely visceral fat than that located just under the skin.” Visceral fat is that located deep in the abdomen and surrounding vital organs like the liver. It is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and dementia. This type of body fat is difficult to see: a thin-appearing person may have too much visceral fat. However, according to their findings, genetic factors linked to smoking are more associated with an increase in visceral adipose tissue than with subcutaneous fat.
Fight against smoking: the multiple benefits of quitting
“From a public health perspective, these findings reinforce the importance of large-scale efforts to prevent and reduce tobacco use in the general population, as this could also help reduce visceral abdominal fat and all chronic diseases associated with it. are linked”, believes Dr. Carrasquilla. The risks linked to tobacco are therefore multiple: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, etc. According to Public Health Franceit is responsible for one in three cases of cancer.
