A Biochemist Explains Why Visceral Fat Is the Ultimate Health Threat and Exactly How to Lose It
The pinchable type of fat that lives just under the skin is known as subcutaneous fat. But there's another type of fat that's far less visible and even more dangerous: visceral fat. Unlike subcutaneous fat, which you might squeeze on your arms or abdomen, visceral fat lives deep inside the abdomen and surrounds internal organs, like the liver, pancreas, and intestines.
What's more concerning is how easily visceral fat can go unnoticed. Unlike its subcutaneous counterpart, people can carry a high amount of visceral fat without looking overweight. Still, higher levels of visceral fat have been strongly linked to an increased risk of chronic disease. One study found that people carrying more abdominal fat were about 44 percent more likely to develop conditions like heart disease and cancer.
"Visceral fat doesn't respond to insulin," says Rhonda Patrick, PhD, of FoundMyFitness, in a recent Huberman Lab podcast interview. "So, it just keeps going, right? And these free fatty acids-because they're going right to the liver-it's essentially antagonizing the insulin receptors. So, it causes insulin receptors to become more resistant to insulin."
The buildup of visceral fat is influenced by several factors, like diet, chronic sleep deprivation, elevated stress levels, and hormonal changes. Luckily, reducing dangerous visceral fat is possible, but requires consistent lifestyle interventions.
The foundation is maintaining a sustained calorie deficit, which can be achieved through habits like nutrition tracking or intermittent fasting. Exercise is another driver of visceral fat loss. Aerobic exercise and high-intensity interval training, for instance, can improve insulin sensitivity and increase fat oxidation. Resistance training preserves and builds muscle mass to improve glucose regulation and help maintain a higher resting metabolic rate.
Lifestyle factors such as sleep and stress management also contribute because chronically elevated cortisol levels causes you to store visceral fat. For example, one study that looked at 12 healthy men over two weeks found that those restricted to four hours of sleep per night experienced a 9 percent increase in total abdominal fat area and an 11 percent increase in visceral fat, compared to those who slept nine hours per night.
"It's not necessarily something that you're going to see on the scale, but it's happening, right? And it's affecting your short-term mood: how you feel, your energy, it's affecting the way you're eating," Patrick says. "It's a vicious cycle because you start to eat more calories, right? And then it just becomes this vicious cycle that you start to gain more visceral fat."
This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 17, 2026, where it first appeared in the Health section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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This story was originally published June 17, 2026 at 10:52 AM.