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HOW TO get rid of visceral fat: This type of body fat is deemed harmful because of where it’s stored in the body - the abdominal cavity - so what can you do to reduce it? Making changes to diet has been shown to help, and following a particular eating pattern has proven effective. Visceral fat’s location within the abdominal cavity means it surrounds vital organs such as the liver, stomach and intestines. If visceral fat is left to build up here, a person’s risk of developing serious health problems, like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, is increased. Related...

Older adults who drink diet soda may experience greater increases in their waist size over a decade than those who do not drink diet soda, according to a new study. Researchers found that the average increase in waist circumference among the people in the study who drank diet soda daily was more than triple that of the people who did not drink diet soda. Among the people who drank diet soda only occasionally, the increase was more than double that of those who did not drink diet soda. "The more people drank diet sodas, the more their waistlines expanded," said...

Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden have performed the first study on humans that demonstrates how food's fat composition determines where fat will be stored in the body. Findings of the small, preliminary study suggest that polyunsaturated fat -- found in olive oil, nuts and seeds and oily fish-- seems to keep fat away from the abdomen and liver. Published in the American Diabetes Association journal Diabetes, the study focused on 39 young, healthy adult men and women, all of whom ate an extra 750 calories per day for seven weeks. Extra calories were consumed via high-fat muffins baked by...

Countries using high-fructose corn syrup have diabetes rates 20 percent higher than countries that do not, a new international analysis finds. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in national food supplies around the world might help explain the rising rates of type 2 diabetes around the world, researchers at the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford report in the journal Global Public Health. After studying 42 countries, researchers found that those that use HFCS in their food supply had a 20 percent higher prevalence of diabetes than those that did not use HFCS, suggesting an association with diabetes independent...

Dieters desperate to get rid of that spare tyre can finally let it all hang out. That muffin-top could actually help to regulate the immune system and provide a first line of defence against infection and viruses. A hard-to-shift beer belly could even help regenerate damaged tissue after an injury. The fatty membrane in the belly, called the omentum, has never seemed to serve much of a purpose. But now the research by scientists in Chicago has shown it can be a health benefit - and their discovery could lead to the development of new drugs for organ transplant patients...

I'm 61 and I'm fighting a gaining battle ...