The distribution of body fat appears to be more important than Obesity itself in terms of women’s risk for developing the metabolic syndrome - a cluster of disorders that raise the likelihood of heart disease and diabetes - new study findings suggest.

Dr. Barbara J. Nicklas, at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and associates examined 58 obese women, with the goal of understanding why not all obese individuals are affected by the metabolic syndrome.

All the participants were postmenopausal and sedentary, but only 27 exhibited three or more of the components of the metabolic syndrome, which include high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglyceride levels, low HDL (“good” cholesterol), and a large waist circumference.

The researchers estimated the women’s body composition and used CT scans to measure fat deposits in different areas of the body.

There were no differences in aerobic fitness, body weight, body mass index, fat mass, percent body fat, or the amount of subcutaneous fat between women who had the metabolic syndrome and those who did not.

However, lean mass and the amount of abdominal fat were significantly higher in the metabolic syndrome group, even after taking age into account.

Abdominal fat is probably the most important factor associated with the syndrome, Nicklas said at the American Medical Association’s annual science reporters’ conference in Washington, DC. These findings are also being published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

“In my opinion, heredity is probably the most important factor in determining fat distribution,” Nicklas commented.

“There is some evidence that for individuals who lose weight with exercise rather than with dieting alone, there will be selective loss of (abdominal) fat,” she added. “It seems that exercise causes intra-abdominal fat to be mobilized more quickly.”

SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, November 2004.