How is body composition associated with insulin resistance?

Insulin resistance is related to abdominal obesity. Learn how belly fat can be a predictor for diabetes and heart disease.

Transcript

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Insulin resistance is one of the major causes of diabetes. Diabetes can result either from the body not making

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enough insulin or the body not reacting properly to the insulin that's being made. And that second state is referred to

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as insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is related to abdominal obesity-- belly fat, basically.

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And it turns out, surprisingly, that someone's abdominal circumference measured right where the belly button is is a greater predictor of both heart

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disease and diabetes than is their weight or their body mass index. So you can be very heavy, but if you carry your weight

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around your thighs, for example, then your risk of diabetes is not nearly as great as somebody who is the same weight and height,

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but carries it all around their middle. It's not exactly clear what does this. Most of us think of fat cells in the abdomen--

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in the organs in the abdominal cavity-- as being abnormal fat. And there's evidence that those abnormal fat cells

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are secreting hormones and other chemicals that render us insulin resistant.