Muscles can sometimes store dangerous fat that can harm a person’s cardiovascular health, a new study suggests.
According to RCO News Agency, Most people know that fat stored in the body, especially in the abdomen and flanks, can be a disaster for cardiovascular health, but Harvard researchers have now discovered another problematic area for body fat storage that has been largely overlooked.
A team led by Viviany Taqueti, director of the Cardiac Stress Laboratory at Harvard Brigham and Women’s Hospital, looked at 669 people who had been hospitalized for chest pain or shortness of breath, even though they had no signs of coronary artery disease. , checked. Coronary artery disease is a condition in which the arteries that supply blood to the heart become severely blocked.
70% of the study subjects were women, and there was an almost even balance between white and non-white participants, and the average age of this group was 63 years.
Patients’ hearts were checked by PET/CT scan during hospitalization. Their body composition was also analyzed using CT scan. The researchers then calculated each patient’s “fatty muscle ratio,” which is a measure of the fat inside the muscles relative to their total body fat.
After six years, the researchers followed the conditions of these patients and found that for every one percent increase in muscle fat, people were 2 percent more at risk of developing coronary artery disease (CMD), a condition in which blood vessels The little ones who serve the heart get hurt.
In addition, every 1 percent increase in muscle fat leads to a 7 percent increase in the risk of serious heart disease in the future.
These findings were independent of a person’s total body fat, as measured by body mass index, or BMI.
“Fat stored in muscle compared to subcutaneous fat may lead to inflammation and altered glucose metabolism, leading to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome,” Takuti said. These conditions, in turn, can damage blood vessels, including those that supply the heart, as well as the heart muscle itself.
While fat under the skin is easy to see, the new finding about fat stored in muscle raises questions about how to assess people’s heart disease risk because we all burn fat at different rates in muscle, Takuti says. We save ourselves.
Looking at BMI alone, a tool that compares height to weight to get total body fat, may no longer be enough.
Knowing that intermuscular fat increases the risk of heart disease is another way to identify people who are at high risk, regardless of body mass index, Takuti says. These findings could be particularly important for understanding the effects of fat on heart health and provide new treatments.
“We haven’t figured out how to reduce the risk of developing fatty muscles, but we’re now looking at which fat-fighting strategies such as diet, exercise, surgery and weight-loss drugs can affect body composition and disease rates,” Takuti says. Affect the heart.
The results of this study have been published in the European Heart Journal.
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