Fat Thighs Benefits Health

For many people, mainly women, fat on legs, hips, and buttocks may actually help ward off heart disease and diabetes.

University of Colorado researchers reported last week that in a study of 95 women past menopause, being bottom-heavy was linked to better scores on several ominous markers in the blood, including triglycerides and high sugar levels. When women were also heavy above the waist, most advantages of the leg fat vanished, but thick thighs still improved their scores on triglycerides, potentially harmful fats in the blood.

”Our body of research, as well as some others, suggest that leg fat is good fat," said Rachael Van Pelt, the lead researcher. ”It’s protective, at least with respect to the risk factors we’ve looked at."

Researchers are not sure exactly why leg fat carries benefits, but this latest study complements the growing understanding that all fat is not alike. In recent years it has become clearer that ”visceral fat," which wraps around organs and swells waistlines, poses the greatest health danger, while ”peripheral fat" on arms and legs is more benign and, according to recent research, may even be helpful.

Researchers caution that their work does not translate into advice to gain or retain excess weight. Though people tend toward either a bottom-heavy pear shape or a top-heavy apple shape, there is no way to gain only peripheral fat without gaining visceral fat, as well.
But researches say that it raises questions about liposuction and whether surgically removing thigh fat is a good idea.

Many women may obsess over slimming their thighs, but ”you want to pay attention to controlling your waistline, and if that’s under control, that’s more important than physical appearance per se," said Dr. Anne B. Newman, a University of Pittsburgh professor.

Newman coauthored another recent study that found that among more than 3,000 men and women in their 70s, thigh fat was often linked to lower rates of ”metabolic syndrome," a cluster of risk factors for diabetes and heart disease that includes high levels of sugar and bad cholesterol in the blood. In that study, thigh fat was linked to better scores on those measures among overweight women and among both men and women fat enough to qualify as obese.

It is likely that thigh fat also helps people of other ages, said Van Pelt, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center.

How thigh fat might work its magic has not been established. One theory is that it acts as a kind of metabolic sink, clearing triglycerides and other harmful compounds from the blood, researchers say.

Another possibility is that leg fat does not actually have an effect itself. Rather, it simply reflects healthy body processes that make a woman tend to store fat in the safer, peripheral areas, instead of in the more harmful, visceral area. It is not clear why the process differs in people.

Every woman she knows hates her own thighs ”unequivocally" and that is unlikely to change, said Lynne Trayers, a Norwood dialysis technician. ”Fashion magazines have more impact than science."

The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Aug 12, 2005