Excess Fat In Muscles May Be More Dangerous Than Having A Pot Belly, Study Warns

Are you self-conscious about your pot belly or muffin top? Well, something more dangerous lurks underneath it: the fat around the muscles. This silent threat can seriously endanger your health and shorten your lifespan, a new study finds.

Muscle steatosis is the accumulation of pathological fat in skeletal muscle tissue.It tends to increase with age and is associated with the development of type 2 diabetes, according to National Library of Medicine.

A study involving 9,000 adults, published in the journal Radiologyshowed a 10-year mortality rate of 15.5% in those with muscular steatosis, higher than the 7.6% observed in obese individuals.

In fact, the risks associated with muscle steatosis are higher than those posed by factors such as fat around the abdominal organs and fatty liver. The major risks associated with muscle steatosis are comparable to those associated with smoking or type 2 diabetes.

According to study co-author Dr. Maxime Nachit, this correlation was not affected by age or measures of obesity such as BMI.

“Interestingly, this relationship was independent of age or measures of obesity such as BMI,” Nachit said in a report. Media release. “This means that fat accumulation in muscle cannot only be explained by older age and/or fat overload in other parts of the body.”

Although muscle steatosis poses a serious threat, there is a lack of medical timeliness to address and contain it, the researchers said.

“We are seeing the emergence of ‘personalized medicine’ aimed at tailoring medical management based on a range of information, including genetics, medical history, physical characteristics and complex molecular assessments. Our study shows that it is possible to identify Muscle steatosis is a reliable indicator of an individual’s short-term mortality risk,” Nachit said.

Researchers use machine learning to better understand this problem. They used abdominal CT scans of asymptomatic adults who participated in routine bowel cancer screening between 2004 and 2016 to extract measurements related to body composition.

The study documented significant adverse events, including heart attack, stroke, aneurysm and death. Of the 507 participants who died, about 55 percent were found to have muscle steatosis.

Published by Medicaldaily.com