Visceral‑fat warning
Doctors are flagging a 'visceral fat paradox' — people with normal BMI can still carry dangerous abdominal fat that raises diabetes and heart‑disease risk, especially among South Asian populations. (livemint.com) (theguardian.com)
A study presented at the American Heart Association’s EPI|Lifestyle Scientific Sessions 2026 reported that measures of excess belly fat — rather than BMI alone — showed a stronger association with future heart‑failure risk and systemic inflammation. (medicalxpress.com) A nutrition‑science analysis found that direct measures of visceral adipose tissue (VAT) on imaging correlate more closely with metabolic risk than BMI and that simple waist‑based measures are better clinical proxies for VAT than BMI alone. (ajcn.nutrition.org) Clinical guidance for South Asian populations uses lower waist‑circumference action points — roughly ≥90 cm for men and ≥80 cm for women — thresholds linked to higher diabetes prevalence in several large Asian cohorts. (diabetesjournals.org) Global expert review and WHO consultation have recommended lower BMI action points for many Asian populations, proposing BMI ≥23 kg/m2 as a point for increased surveillance and BMI ≥27.5 kg/m2 as the obesity action point in several policy frameworks. (sciencedirect.com) The “thin‑fat” phenotype was first described in the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study, which documented Indian newborns with low birthweight and muscle mass but relatively preserved body fat — a pattern that investigators linked to higher later insulin resistance. (nature.com) Large cohort and metabolomics work has shown ectopic fat (visceral and liver fat) explains a sizeable share of type‑2 diabetes risk among South Asians and that metabolite‑based risk scores for ectopic adiposity predict incident diabetes in these populations. (thelancet.com)
