The so called pot belly may be harmful to health, by resulting in the long run among the causes of diseases of heart and brain and tumors. Like many peoples, maybe you have included as a New Year’s resolution also gym to keep or bring back your target body weight. Well, a recent research published on 27th December on the journal Cell Metabolism by a team of the University of Copenhagen has analyzed the effect of gym on visceral fat and has found out the mechanisms that bring to a reduction of the waistline and that, until now, were unclear.
The key of visceral fat losing seems to be a protein, the interleukin 6, released by skeletal muscles during exercise. This conclusion comes after a study on 53 persons followed for a period of 3 months. The participants to the experiment have been divided into four groups, group 1 took a saline solution as a placebo combined with a bicycle session of 45 minutes several times each week, group 2 took a saline solution combined with no exercise, group 3 took an interleukin inhibitor combined with bicycle sessions and finally group 4 took the protein inhibitor with no exercise. At the end of 12 weeks those people who had taken the saline solution and had been trained with the bicycle sessions showed 8% reduction of visceral fat in respect to those who had taken the same saline solution but without physical activity. This is the proof that gym acts on visceral fat by reducing it. All the two groups who had taken the interleukin inhibitor showed an increase in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and visceral fat and the effects of gym were totally eliminated. This is the explanation of the role played by interleukin 6 in the processes of reduction of visceral fat activated by physical activity.
No more excuses, exercise reduces spot belly! Just a little explanation, given by the authors of the study. When you start exercising, an increase in body weight may be observed and this may lead you to think that you are far away from the desired results. However, what is happening is that you are increasing your muscle mass and this causes an increase in body weight. For this reason, a good way to stay motivated and track the visceral fat loss may be, in addition to measuring the body weight, to measure also waist circumference.
