Some people fear gaining weight when they quit smoking, so they quit. However, stopping smoking can help them lose it. Danish researchers have revealed that smoking increases the amount of abdominal and visceral fat. They found it in a study, the results of which appeared in the journal Addiction.
How to understand the effect of smoking on body fat?
The team from the University of Copenhagen’s NNF Center for Basic Metabolic Research used previous studies to identify genes linked to smoking habits and body fat distribution. In total, this represents over two million participants. Then, they analyzed this genetic data to see if the distribution of body fat was different in people with genes associated with smoking. Finally, they took into account other factors, such as alcohol consumption or socioeconomic background, to ensure that any link between smoking and body fat distribution was actually due to smoking. The same and not with other factors. To analyze their data, they used a statistical analysis technique called Mendelian randomization (MR) to determine if there was a cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and the presence of abdominal fat.
Smoking: Increase in abdominal and visceral fat
According to their findings, smoking influences the amount of abdominal fat, independent of other factors including alcohol consumption or socioeconomic status. “The study found that smoking and starting to smoke during a person’s life can increase belly fat, as measured by waist-to-hip ratio measurements.The lead author of the research is Dr. German d. Observes Carasquila. In further analysis, we also found that the type of fat that is increasing is more likely to be visceral fat than subcutaneous fat.Visceral fat is located deep within the abdomen and in important organs such as the liver. It is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and dementia. This type of body fat is hard to see: a thin-looking person may have a lot of visceral fat. However, according to their findings, genetic factors linked to smoking are more associated with increased visceral fat than subcutaneous fat.
Fighting smoking: The multiple benefits of quitting
“From a public health perspective, these findings reinforce the importance of large-scale efforts to prevent and reduce smoking in the general population, as this may also help reduce visceral abdominal fat and all associated chronic diseases.”, Dr. Carrasquila believes. So the risks associated with tobacco are multiple: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, etc. According to Public Health France, it is responsible for one in three cancer cases.
