Measuring visceral adiposity

After reading the article “Normal-weight central obesity. Unique hazard of the toxic waist” in the June issue of Canadian Family Physician,¹ I wanted to note that I find waist circumference to be an extremely inaccurate measure of visceral adiposity, which is located mostly in the anterior abdominal bulge, while “love handles” and subcutaneous adiposity cause very limited metabolic risk compared with visceral and ectopic fat. Short-² and long-term³ effects on the metabolic profile (including inflammatory markers, blood pressure, plasma lipid profile, and insulin resistance) of large-volume liposuction (about 20% to 40% of excess body fat), mostly from the waist area, were no different after removing the large amounts of fat.

I think we should focus more on the anterior abdominal bulge than the whole waist circumference.

• Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada