Liver Fat Linked to Metabolic Syndrome

Guess who gets fat livers and metabolic syndrome.

"When it comes to how fat affects metabolic risk factors, the issue is where, not how much, researchers said.

The latest hot spot is the liver.

Several studies have shown that visceral fat is associated with increased risk of factors leading to diabetes and heart disease, according to Samuel Klein, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and colleagues.

But the real culprit is fat in the liver: other visceral fat might just be an 'innocent bystander,' Klein's group reported online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In a cohort study, they found that obese people with the same visceral fat volume, but different levels of liver fat, had important variations in markers of metabolic disorders.

On the other hand, there were no differences among people with different fat volumes but the same level of liver fat, they found.

'We have found that excess fat in the liver, not visceral fat, is a key marker of metabolic dysfunction,' Klein said in a statement."

And being fat is a key marker of brain dysfunction.