Smoking is not only bad for your lungs but it may cause an increase in a type of body fat linked to serious disease, as per a new study.
An increase in abdominal fat was associated with both starting smoking and spending a lifetime smoking cigarettes, as per a study in the journal Addiction, according to CNN.
Lead study author Dr Germán Carrasquilla, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at Karolinska Institute in Sweden said that further analysis showed that the increase may be in visceral fat.
Visceral fat surrounds your organs within your abdomen but it is not visible.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, it’s normal and healthy for visceral fat to make up about 10% of your body’s total fat. However, too much visceral fat can create inflammation, contributing to chronic disease.
“Its location and the way it interacts with our body’s functions make it particularly dangerous,” Carrasquilla said in an email. “This type of fat is strongly linked to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other metabolic conditions.”
“The results show the need for large-scale efforts to prevent and reduce smoking,” he said.
“Reducing one major health risk in the population will, indirectly, reduce another major health risk,” Carrasquilla said in a statement.
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