Walk off that Secret Flab

By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY

"Walk briskly to reduce hidden belly fat."

Doing regular exercise like walking briskly reduces deep, hidden belly fat, possibly lowering the risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and some types of cancer, according to a new study.

This is the first large-scale trial to show that exercise alone can reduce intra-abdominal or visceral fat, which many scientists say is the most dangerous kind. The study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association adds to the growing body of evidence on the health benefits of moderate activity.

Researchers recruited 173 sedentary, postmenopasual women in the Seattle area who were between the ages of 50 to 75. The women were either overweight (10 to 30 pounds over a healthy weight) or obese (about 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight). Most had high levels of intra-abdominal fat.

"When you walk, shoot for a goal of 45 minutes. Work up to it gradually."

Half of them worked out for 45 minutes, five days a week either at a gym or at home. Their exercise often involved brisk walks. The other half attended a weekly 45-minute stretching class. The women were asked to eat like they usually do and not change their calorie intake.

Scientists measured the women's total body fat and their intra-abdominal or visceral fat near the organs. Most people don't know how much intra-abdominal fat they have because it's deposited around organs within the abdomen, and the only accurate way to determine the amount of this fat is with CT or MRI scans.

Larger amounts of intra-abdominal fat have an impact on cholesterol and insulin and are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.


"Here's what the researchers found."

The researchers found that women who best adhered to the exercise program got the largest decreases in total and intra-abdominal fat. At the end of a year, they found:

* The exercisers lost between 3.4% and 6.9% of their intra-abdominal fat, depending on how much they exercised. The control group stayed the same.
* Very active women lost 4.2% of their total body fat, and moderately active women lost 2.4%. The control group stayed the same.
* The exercisers lost about three pounds; members of the control group lost no weight.

"It's really promising and exciting that we saw a benefit with a program that's not difficult to do," says lead researcher Anne McTiernan, an internist and faculty member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Even if people who exercise regularly don't see the results on the scale, they can be confident they're improving their health, she says.

She expects to find significant decreases in insulin and total and LDL (bad) cholesterol with this amount of intra-abdominal fat loss. "The good news is it's never too late to enjoy the health benefits of exercise."

"Get similar benefits."

To get similar benefits to the women in the study, people should walk briskly — like they are late for the bus — for 45 minutes five days a week, she says. The exercise should be intense enough that they feel their heart rate increase and may sweat, but they should still be able to hold a conversation.

Tim Church, an exercise researcher at the Cooper Institute in Dallas, says the new study may explain why some people who recently started an exercise program say their pants fit better but they're not losing much weight. "We think visceral fat is exercise sensitive," he says.

Barbara Ainsworth, an exercise scientist at the University of South Carolina, says this study is good news for postmenopausal women who often struggle to control their weight. "This is a time in women's lives when they often see large increases in body fatness, but these participants were able to get decreases."

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