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Weight loss isn’t the only benefit from regular exercise. A new study finds working out regularly can make your fat tissue healthier which keeps you healthy in the long run.
Researchers at the University of Michigan studied 32 obese adults. Half of them were long-term exercisers doing workouts such as jogging or biking for at least four times a week for at least two years. The other half did not exercise.
“On appearance they looked very similar,” Jeff Horowitz, a professor of movement science in the University of Michigan’s School of Kinesiology, who led the study. “They had the same amount of body fat. They carried their body fat in the same manner. They were the same weight.”
Researchers examined the subject’s subcutaneous fat–the fat tissue located just underneath the skin, the kind you can pinch and found stark differences in the regular exercisers.
“We found that their fat tissue had more blood vessels there, the tissue itself was less rigid. We also found there was less inflammation going on in their fat tissue,” says Cheehoon Ahn, the study’s first author.
The exercisers also had more beneficial proteins in their fat tissues. Ahn said that means their subcutaneous fat tissue was much healthier as the belly fat tissue from the non-exercisers didn’t show any of those characteristics. They also postulated the changes seen in the exercisers’ fat tissue may protect them from accumulating visceral fat. Visceral fat can raise the risk of developing diabetes and heart disease because of fat that forms around vital organs. The study shows living a physically active lifestyle can help us store fat in a healthier and safer way.
“You know, not all fat is created equal, and it does turn out that location, location, location does actually make a difference in how fat tissue affects overall health,” said Philipp Scherer, director of the Touchstone Diabetes Center at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Scherer was not involved in the study but calls it brilliant.
“They show very nicely that exercise really is a good thing,” he said.
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