Fitness Files: Visceral fat is the stuff to really be concerned about

My friend Lauren pointed to my watermelon-shaped belly. “Hey, your tummy sticks out just like mine after you eat.

Downing Lauren’s delectable dinner makes me despise the skinny jeans I donned for her party.

But exterior roundness is nothing compared to the grim facts about the hidden fat behind the bulge.

According to the Mayo Clinic, women with a belly measuring 35 inches or more and men with at least a 40-inch middle are in a barrel of trouble — a sign that beneath that chubbiness lurks visceral fat, which curls around organs and emits poison.

Here’s the good news. Visceral fat melts fast with exercise. The blubber that extends over the belt is harder to skim off but benign. The simpler-to-slim visceral fat is the villain you want to vanquish and can.

Here’s Dr. Anthony Komaroff’s sobering list of reasons to get rid of the fat hidden within the abdominal cavity. “Little hormone factories” is the term the Harvard professor gives visceral fat cells. They secrete substances that have “a profound effect” upon metabolism.

For example, Harvard researchers identified proteins from visceral fat cells that trigger inflammatory heart disease, as well as a molecule that increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Dr. Lewis Kuller, for WebMD, describes a hormone generated by abdominal fat — angiotensin — that causes high blood pressure, stroke and heart attack.

What you’ll dissolve with a daily strenuous walk is what WebMD calls “metabolic syndrome,” a “cluster of abnormalities” — including high blood sugar, high blood pressure and high triglycerides — that have “an impact on mortality.”

Men’s visceral fat’s is also linked to erectile disfunction and colon and prostate cancer, while women are twice as likely to need gallstone surgery and to have fertility problems and cancer of the breast, uterine, cervix, colon, kidney and pancreas.

Another exercise cheerleader, WebMd’s Dr. Howard Eisenson of Duke University, says belly fat “tends to be fairly readily mobilized. It comes off fairly easily and fairly quickly.” Liposuction doesn’t work. Even dieting tips the hat to physical activity.

Dr. Robert Eckel, president of the American Heart Assn., says, “People who get more physical activity lose a greater percentage of intra-abdominal fat, with 30 to 60 minutes most days of the week.”

If this sounds like a hard sell to get moving, it is. Lets look at metabolic syndrome as a simple cause and effect. Too big a waist brings on a potential for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, fertility problems and several cancers. These are expensive illnesses, driving up healthcare costs.

Public health aside, metabolic syndrome is most expensive for people who have it. It can cost them their lives.

So go for the gold. As Kuller says, “Exercise is the golden path to help you lose belly fat.”

Lauren and I will continue to clean our plates, enjoy dessert and then hold our round middles, but next morning we’ll both be out walking, hiking, biking or running. Maybe we can’t hold our bellies in, but we can whittle down villainous visceral fat by getting out. So can you.

Newport Beach resident CARRIE LUGER SLAYBACK is a retired teacher who ran the Los Angeles Marathon at age 70, winning first place in her age group. Her blog is lazyracer@blogspot.com.