About this episode

The episode discusses the complexities of body fat, its functions, and the implications of fat removal on health.

In 2004 a surgeon removed about ten kilograms of fat from fifteen women and measured everything that mattered. Nothing improved. Four years later, it still hadn't. That result should have ended an argument about body fat. Instead the argument got more specific, and the version you've heard most recently is that visceral fat, the fat around your organs, is the dangerous kind. I've said a version of that myself on this show, and in this episode I expand upon it. This one starts from the beginning: what your fat is actually for, what insulin is, and what insulin resistance means, in plain terms and assuming nothing. Then four experiments that all point the same direction. Fat removed surgically, and the disease doesn't follow. People born with no fat tissue at all, who get the entire disease anyway. A hormone that reversed a 48% fatty liver without adding a gram of fat. And a diabetes drug that made people heavier and healthier at the same time. The second half is practical. What a fatty liver actually does over twenty years, what BMI can and can't do, why the Lancet Commission changed the definition of obesity in 2025, and the exact order of tests I'd use, including the TyG index…

People in this episode

Host: Barbell Medicine

Topics covered

• body fat
• visceral fat
• insulin resistance
• fatty liver
• obesity
• BMI
• health

Keywords

• fat storage
• insulin
• visceral fat
• fatty liver
• obesity definition
• BMI
• health outcomes

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Lancet Commission

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