It has long been thought that carrying weight on your lower body was not as harmful to your health as carrying it around your stomach, and US scientists now think they know the reason.
Contrary to the previous understanding that adults cannot produce new fat cells, researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota have found new fat cells can in fact be produced after childhood, but only in the lower parts of the body.
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“It sort of inverts the old dogma that we don’t make new fat cells when we are adults,” lead researcher Dr Michael Jensen told Reuters.
The researchers persuaded 28 healthy volunteers to eat until they were more than full for two months and then monitored their weight gain.
They found that as they piled on the kilos, the volunteers added new fat cells to their legs while the cells in their bellies instead expanded.
The findings could help explain why weight gain in the stomach carries more health risks than elsewhere in the body.
“Those people who make new leg fat cells, it may be protecting them,” Dr Jensen said.
The volunteers were encouraged to devour milkshakes, chocolate bars and energy drinks (a tough assignment!).
On average, they gained 2kg of upper-body fat and 1.4kg on their hips and thighs.
Contrary to the researchers’ expectations, women were no more likely than men to put weight on their thighs.
The findings may help expand our understanding of the role fat cells play in producing hormones as well as storing kilojoules and may help to explain why extra weight raises the risk of diabetes, heart disease and some cancers, Reuters reported.
Your say: Do you find it harder to lose weight from your stomach or your thighs? Share your thoughts below.
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