A study suggests that certain excess fat around the abdomen may play a vital role in fighting infections and inflammation.
While abdominal and visceral fat—fat surrounding internal organs—has long been considered harmful, linked to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, stroke, and high blood pressure, researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute indicate that “not all belly fat is the same,” and some types may actually be beneficial.
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Jiawei Chong, the study’s lead author, explained: “Fat tissue does more than store energy; it functions as an active organ, sending signals that affect the entire body. A common misconception is that belly fat is uniform, but it actually consists of several distinct areas.”
The study, published in Cell Metabolism, analyzed samples from five different types of abdominal fat in eight individuals with severe obesity, taken from under the skin, around the stomach, and near the intestines.
Results revealed clear differences among these fat types, notably the fat tissue above the colon, which contains an unusually high number of inflammatory fat cells and immune cells, according to the Independent. Laboratory experiments showed that bacterial signals can stimulate these fat cells to produce proteins that activate immune cells within the tissue to fight infection.
Researchers noted that fat tissues near the intestines may have a unique function, potentially as an adaptation to the gut microbiome—the ecosystem of microbes living in the intestines.
Since the study was conducted on individuals with obesity, it remains unclear whether the findings apply to people of normal weight.
Jutta Yalkinen, a co-first author, stated: “The next step is to understand the role of fat tissue surrounding the colon in inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Now that we know it contains both fat and immune cells, we aim to study how their interaction influences disease activity. Our goal is to determine whether this fat tissue contributes to amplifying or sustaining inflammation by sending signals that affect local immune cells.”
Previous studies suggest that obesity is not always harmful. A Danish study of over 85,000 adults indicated that mild overweight may not shorten lifespan, while extreme thinness might. People with a body mass index (BMI) under 18.5 were nearly three times more likely to die prematurely compared to those within the “healthy” BMI range.
