Obese people who regularly exercise have healthier belly fat tissue and can store fat more effectively than those in the same condition who do not exercise, according to a new study from the University of Michigan.
“Our findings indicate that in addition to being a means to expend calories, exercising regularly for several months to years seems to modify your fat tissue in ways that allows you to store your body fat more healthfully if or when you do experience some weight gain—as nearly everyone does as we get older,” said principal investigator Jeffrey Horowitz, professor of movement science at the U-M School of Kinesiology. “Compared with our previous study in which we examined the effects of three months of training on fat tissue, we generally see these differences are more robust in people who exercise regularly for years versus those who don’t exercise.”
Over the past three decades, the number of people — both children and adults — considered to be clinically obese has risen to over 1 billion, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. Obesity is defined as having a body mass index of 30 or higher, and it substantially increases a person’s risk of various negative health outcomes. Excess weight has been connected to a heightened risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, cancer, dementia, infertility, and more.
In Texas, the condition has made significant gains over the past few years, with 35.5% of adults and 17% of children between the ages of 10 and 17 estimated to be obese.
Medical News Today details the study’s findings. Here’s the start of the story:
Regular endurance exercise can maintain health in the subcutaneous adipose tissue in which fat is stored, says a new study from the University of Michigan.
The study, which appears in Nature MetabolismTrusted Source, found that adipose tissue samples taken from regular endurance exercisers with overweight or obesity exhibited key differences compared to similar cell samples from people with overweight or obesity who did not exercise. These differences mean that the adipose tissue of regular exercisers is capable of storing fat in a healthier manner.
The study notes that metabolic abnormalities in the adipose tissue of people with overweight or obesity have been linked to various health complications.
Such abnormalities include capillary scarcity, pro-inflammatory macrophage infiltration, and changes in metabolic function, including dysregulated lipid (fat) metabolism.
Issues such as these may limit storage capacity, pushing fat into systemic circulation. It may find its way into organs such as skeletal muscle and the liver — a driver of whole-body insulin resistance — or cause local and systemic inflammation and other obesity-related conditions.
The researchers who conducted the recent study recruited 52 adults with overweight or obesity, 24 of whom were classified as exercisers for over 2 years, and 28 as nonexercisers.