The technique helps to break down fats, effectively melting them away.
The best way to shed belly fat is through exercise, a study finds.
More belly fat is lost by people doing exercise than those taking medications designed for weight loss.
A molecule called interleukin-6 is released by exercise.
This helps to break down fats, effectively melting them away.
Dr Anne-Sophie Wedell-Neergaard, the study’s first author, said:
“The take home for the general audience is ‘do exercise’.
We all know that exercise promotes better health, and now we also know that regular exercise training reduces abdominal fat mass and thereby potentially also the risk of developing cardio-metabolic diseases.”
The research included 53 people who exercised for 45 minutes, several times a week.
The results showed that belly fat was reduced by an average of 8 percent in those who did exercise.
Some people were given a drug that blocks the action of interleukin-6.
The results showed that this group put on weight, suggesting that interleukin-6 is important for weight loss.
Dr Wedell-Neergaard said:
“To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that interleukin-6 has a physiological role in regulating visceral fat mass in humans.”
Unfortunately, there is no food or combination of foods, that have been found to get rid of belly fat.
However, diet and exercise can both help.
Eating healthily is also beneficial for general health, reducing the risk of dementia, cancer and other diseases.
Dr Wedell-Neergaard said:
“It is important to stress that when you start exercising, you may increase body weight due to increased muscle mass.
So, in addition to measuring your overall body weight, it would be useful, and maybe more important, to measure waist circumference to keep track of the loss of visceral fat mass and to stay motivated.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Metabolism (Wedell-Neergaard et al., 2018).
