Fat inside your belly sends out harmful signals that make your body bad at using sugar and mess up how your organs work.

Visceral fat is metabolically active tissue that releases cytokines, which impair insulin sensitivity and disrupt metabolic signaling in the liver, muscles, and brain, leading to systemic metabolic dysfunction.

Scientists are trying to figure out why belly fat affects the liver more than fat under the skin, by comparing how the two types of fat work.

Visceral adipose tissue releases bioactive molecules directly into the portal venous system, exposing the liver to elevated concentrations of free fatty acids and inflammatory cytokines.

Fat around the organs dumps fat and inflammatory signals straight into the liver through a special blood pipe, where they can mess with liver cells and immune cells.

When too many fat molecules and inflammatory signals from belly fat reach the liver, it becomes less responsive to insulin.