Visceral Fat

Visceral fat is the ‘hidden’ adipose tissue stored deep within the abdominal cavity around a number of important internal organs such as the liver, intestines and pancreas. Sometimes it is referred to as ‘active fat’ because this type of fat plays a distinctive and potentially dangerous role affecting how our hormones works.

Usually visceral fat make up 10% or one-tenth of all the fat stored in our body, and storing higher amounts of visceral fat are associated with increased metabolic disorders like type 2 diabetes.

Going through an MRI scan shows how much visceral fat we are storing but this is an expensive procedure. A relatively easy indicator of visceral fat storage is to take waistline measurements.  For women, 35 inches or more and for men 40 inches or more shows you are at high risk of excess visceral fats in your body.