Managing Cardiometabolic Risk

Key Points

• Intra-abdominal fat is a strong predictor of metabolic abnormalities, disease, and mortality.
• As little as 20 minutes of daily exercise can reduce intra-abdominal fat by 10%. Increasing exercise to 60 minutes a day can lead to even greater reductions (~30%).
• Reducing daily caloric intake by 400 to 700 kcal can cause a 15 to 30% reduction in intra-abdominal fat.
• For a given amount of weight loss, exercise preserves muscle mass and causes greater reductions in total and intra-abdominal fat compared to diet-induced weight loss.
• Although reducing body weight causes the greatest reduction in intra-abdominal fat, exercise training can significantly reduce intra-abdominal fat, even when weight is maintained.