UVA Health: Abdominal fat may not directly impact diabetes risk

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - UVA Health has found that storing fat around the waist may not increase your diabetes risk.

Researchers say that naturally occurring variations in our genes can lead some people to store fat at the waist, while also protecting from diabetes.

“Most of the medical advice that you get is that having an increased abdominal circumference, or basically having increased fat around your gut, is really bad for you metabolically. Finding these five genetic variants that were associated with these opposite effects was really surprising to us,” said Yonathan Aberra with UVA Health.

UVA says this finding can help pave the way for more personalized medications or treatments for diabetes patients.

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