Why do men and women store fat in different places?
Distinct developmental signatures of human abdominal and gluteal subcutaneous adipose tissue depots.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
HOXC13 is only active in gluteal fat and never detected in abdominal fat—even in obese men.
Scientists assumed fat depot differences were due to hormones or environment, but finding a gene that’s 100% exclusive to one fat location suggests deep developmental programming, not just hormonal influence.
Practical Takeaways
Stop blaming yourself for stubborn butt or belly fat—your body’s fat distribution is genetically hardwired, so focus on health, not shape.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
HOXC13 is only active in gluteal fat and never detected in abdominal fat—even in obese men.
Scientists assumed fat depot differences were due to hormones or environment, but finding a gene that’s 100% exclusive to one fat location suggests deep developmental programming, not just hormonal influence.
Practical Takeaways
Stop blaming yourself for stubborn butt or belly fat—your body’s fat distribution is genetically hardwired, so focus on health, not shape.
Publication
Journal
The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism
Year
2013
Authors
K. Karastergiou, S. Fried, Hui Xie, Mi-Jeong Lee, A. Divoux, M. Rosencrantz, R. J. Chang, Steven R Smith
Related Content
Claims (6)
Men and women tend to store body fat in different areas: men more around the abdomen, and women more around the hips and thighs.
The HOXC13 gene is active only in fat tissue under the skin of the buttocks in both men and women, and not in abdominal fat tissue, which may indicate it helps define the distinct metabolic behavior of gluteal fat.
In human fat tissue under the skin, the activity of certain genes involved in fat development does not change based on a person's body weight or fat levels, suggesting that how fat tissue is organized during development is separate from how much fat is present.
Fat tissue under the skin in the abdomen and buttocks has different patterns of gene activity, with certain genes involved in body development being less active in buttock fat than in abdominal fat, regardless of body weight.
The HOXA10 gene is more active in fat cells under the skin of the buttocks than in fat cells around the abdomen, and this higher activity continues even when these cells are grown in a lab. This suggests HOXA10 may help determine why gluteal fat behaves differently from abdominal fat.