Fat inside your belly sends out harmful signals that make your body bad at using sugar and mess up how your organs work.
Scientific Claim
Visceral adipose tissue is metabolically active and secretes pro-inflammatory cytokines that impair insulin signaling in liver, muscle, and brain tissues.
Original Statement
“visceral fat isn't stored energy. It's metabolically active tissue. It's not like regular fat. So it releases cytokines. It worsens insulin resistance and it directly interferes with how your liver, your muscles, your brain and everything respond to the fuel that you eat.”
Context Details
Domain
nutrition
Population
human
Subject
Visceral adipose tissue
Action
releases cytokines and impairs insulin signaling
Target
liver, muscle, and brain metabolic response to dietary fuel
Intervention Details
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (3)
Tesamorelin improves fat quality independent of changes in fat quantity
The study found that a drug made belly fat healthier by making the fat cells smaller and less inflamed, which supports the idea that bad belly fat causes metabolic problems like insulin resistance.
When scientists gave mice a substance that calms down belly fat inflammation, the mice’s bodies responded better to insulin — proving that inflammation from belly fat breaks insulin signaling.
Technical explanation
This study shows that reducing pro-inflammatory cytokines in adipose tissue improves insulin sensitivity, directly supporting the assertion that these cytokines from VAT impair insulin signaling in metabolic tissues.
When mice eat a high-fat diet, their belly fat gets inflamed and releases harmful chemicals that make the liver, muscles, and brain less able to respond to insulin, which is exactly what the claim says.
Technical explanation
This paper directly links visceral adipose tissue (VAT) inflammation in obese mice to the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines that promote systemic inflammation and insulin resistance, explicitly supporting the assertion that VAT is metabolically active and impairs insulin signaling in liver, muscle, and brain tissues.
Contradicting (1)
The effects of tesamorelin on phosphocreatine recovery in obese subjects with reduced GH.
This study looked at how a drug improved energy production in muscles of obese people, but it didn’t check fat tissue or inflammation, so it doesn’t tell us whether belly fat causes insulin problems like the claim says.