Bigger Belly Means Thinner Bones For Men

The fat around your middle is not a passive passenger in the voyage of life. Aside from pushing on your belt, it pushes up your chances of heart disease. And research now shows that it may be helping drain strength from men’s bones.

“It is important for men to be aware that excess belly fat is not only a risk factor for heart disease and diabetes, it is also a risk factor for bone loss,” says researcher Miriam Bredella, M.D., radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School. “Most studies on osteoporosis have focused on women. Men were thought to be relatively protected against bone loss, especially obese men.”

Bredellla’s research shows that subcutaneous fat around the middle is linked to weaker bones.

“We were not surprised by our results that abdominal and visceral fat are detrimental to bone strength in obese men,” Bredella says. “We were, however, surprised that obese men with a lot of visceral fat had significantly decreased bone strength compared to obese men with low visceral fat but similar BMI (body mass index).”