Fats Surrounding the Heart-Do they Defend or Destroy Its Health?

Eat Good Fats but Avoid Storing Excess Fats that become your Enemy

We can swear by the ill effects of overweight/obesity but the results of various studies on the ‘obesity paradox’ takes us by surprise highlighting that such people are blessed to suffer a minimum risk of attack by coronary heart diseases, heart attack or blood pressure. One of the three main macronutrients, fats have been shamed for decades together and isolated as unhealthy foods. Just think for a minute. If fats are highly unlikely to be of use to a man’s health, then why is it deemed to be one of the three major macronutrients?
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Unbroken Spell
Myths and stories are aplenty and the ones surrounding lowered fat intake is unending. ‘Lowering fat intake adds health’ is only a myth and the underlying principle is that individuals need to consume more of unsaturated (good) fat and less of saturated fat (bad). Forgetting this, we’ve been elaborating on the goodness of ‘healthy’ fat surrounding heart and gluteofemoral fat surrounding organs such as thighs, hips and buttocks that can improve heart health and cardiometabolic health respectively.

Reducing intake of saturated fats lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke but that’s not all. This reduction must be replaced by consuming unsaturated fats that are good for the heart (as they slow down the buildup of plaque in arteries. It’s been proved that switching over from a saturated fat diet to an unsaturated fat diet reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes and blood pressure too.

We are talking about fats in terms of nutrition and not flesh surrounding the body and organs. Despite studies supporting the ‘healthy fat’ theory, the latest research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association shows that less the fat in your body greater is the chance of heart health. Losing ‘any’ type of fat is deemed to be healthier and helps in reducing the risk of heart disease.

Any Fat Loss is Gain for the Body
We don’t determine where the fat we eat goes-either to the wrong places in the body or to the so-called protective regions that are said to hold an advantageous edge. Let’s assume that your body has fat stores in the protective regions and when you make up your mind to lose weight how beneficial is this fat loss to your health? By disrupting the protective covering over your heart, legs and thighs are there any chances of increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases?

To answer this question, researchers analyzed seven different studies on weight loss that was achieved through dieting. 399 participants were analyzed and the researchers compared the risk of heart disease in people who lost fat around their thigh, hip, back and surrounding muscles. Cardiovascular health was measured using blood sugar, insulin, cholesterol, triglyceride and blood pressure levels of participants. Researchers found that loss of leg fat and leg lean tissue was linked to decreased risk of heart disease. Meanwhile, cardiovascular health was not affected due to muscle loss in the gluteofemoral areas. This proves that any fat loss anywhere in the body is good for health. Rather than focusing on where the loss is happening focus on the advantages accompanying the loss.

Loss is Good
The research shows clearly that fat loss anywhere in the body is good irrespective of the place where you are losing it. Also, physicians must focus on weight loss initially by suggesting the patient to go for a diet plan along with light physical activity. For healthy diet plans, one can get in touch with registered dietitian nutritionists at www.firsteatright.com. Once some of the weight is knocked off the body, they can go about recommending vigorous-activity exercises. Apart from losing abdominal fat (one pays a hefty price for this in terms of heart health) it is also recommended to lose leg fat for lowering cholesterol and protecting the heart.