The latest research from the U.S. says how fat a person is may be less important than where that fat is.
According to researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, when it comes to assessing the risks for cardiovascular events and metabolic disease, how much fat a person has is not as important as where that fat is located.
The researchers say so-called 'healthy' individuals may be at risk for heart disease and in the face of an obesity epidemic, it is being revealed that where fat is distributed is of high importance.
For the study the researchers used cardiac and CT scans to measure multiple fat depots in 398 white and black participants aged between 47 and 86, and they found that the amount of fat a person had deposited around organs and in between muscles (nonsubcutaneous fat) had a direct correlation to the amount of hard, calcified plaque they had.
Calcified plaque itself is not considered risky, but it is associated with the development of atherosclerosis, or the presence of less stable, fatty deposits in the blood vessels that can lead to heart attack and stroke.
Lead researcher Dr. Jingzhong Ding, an assistant professor of gerontology, says the hypothesis was that this kind of fat is quite different from subcutaneous fat, or fat just below the skin, and subcutaneous fat may not be as bad as having fat deposited around organs and in between muscles.
Research by Dr. Ding has already shown that fat deposited around the heart (pericardial fat) is associated with calcified plaque in the arteries and therefore may be worse than having a high BMI or a thick waist.