Chasing Life

Welcome to Paging Dr. Gupta. This is the place where we tackle the questions that matter the most to you. How do we know that? Because we're hearing straight from you. These questions are drawn straight from your daily lives. And I love these episodes because they bring your voices and your experiences and your genuine concerns front and center. I love hearing what's going on in your lives. So Kyra, she's back with us. And who do we have first?

Hey Sanjay. So here's a great one to start us off and it's coming from a listener in Oregon. Take a listen.

This is Bridget and I am 80 years old and I'm very healthy, I take no medication and I would like to know how to decrease toxic belly fat.

Okay, Bridget, yes, thanks for your question. Safe to say this, all belly fat is not created equal. The kind that we worry about the most is something called visceral fat. I want you to remember that term, visceral fat. It is the fat that is hidden deep around your organs. In a healthy body, that should be about 10% or so of your total body fat and higher amounts can be risky. Now that's different from something known as subcutaneous fat. Subcutaneous. That's the stuff that's just underneath your skin, and that should comprise about 90% of your body fat. So I'm going to break down what you should consider toxic belly fat and what you can do about it right after the break.

'All right, Bridget, let's talk about this. When it comes to belly fat, there is one type in particular that you need to be concerned about. Again, I mentioned it, it's called visceral fat. That's V-I-S-C-E-R-A-L, visceral, fat. And I explained this before on a previous episode of Chasing Life. Take a listen to this.

A lot of the fat stored around our waist is something known as visceral fat, a potentially dangerous type of body fat that surrounds your liver and your organs. It can contribute to serious health issues, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, strokes.

'So here's the important thing to think about: visceral fat is not just sitting there quietly, in some ways it's its own organ. It's metabolically active. What does that mean? It means that that fat is actually pumping out inflammatory chemicals that can harm your blood vessels and even your brain. This is active fat. In fact, studies have shown that as the size of a person's belly grows, the memory centers of their brain shrinks. It's incredible. And all of this can occur as early as the 40s and 50s, well before any cognitive decline may be apparent. But in later life, it can raise your risk of Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia. So it's churning out this inflammation. And that inflammation can lead to insulin resistance, can lead type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. So question I think a lot of people will ask, how do you know? How do you know if you have too much visceral fat? And this can be tricky because as you just heard, this is the kind of fat that's not always visible. Even thin-looking people can have a lot of it, and they're sometimes called, quote, skinny fat. Now, one thing you can still do, though, is to check your waist size, and you need to do this appropriately. So measure at the top of your hip bone. Feel the very top of you hip bone, and that usually comes right across your belly button. For women, in general, more than 35 inches is gonna put you at higher risk. Another important sign, muscle mass. If you have more fat than muscle, that means you're probably carrying too much visceral fat. Now the good news is, you can address this. You can lose it. Here are some ways that can actually help you: exercise, you know this, but specifically, think about 30 minutes of brisk walking daily. That means you are walking fast enough that you can't really hold a conversation. Now, on certain days of the week add strength training like lunges, push-ups, or lifting weights to build muscle. That helps burn fat. And by the way, I have my mom, who is 82 years old, doing a lot of weight lifting. She's not quite doing the push-up yet, but she is lifting weights and doing all sorts of things to build up muscle. With regard to diet, cut out ultra-processed foods. You know this. Cut out added sugars. Simply don't eat anything that has added sugar in it. There's enough sugar that's already sneakily getting into your foods. Focus on Mediterranean-style diet, rich in fruits and vegetables and whole grains and nuts and olive oil and fish. Interestingly, smoking can lead to more belly fat, so quitting that helps. And you might want to try intermittent fasting, Bridget. So think of this as eating all your meals within a certain window, six to eight hours, that can help. Typically, as long as you don't overdo it during those six to eight hours, it's gonna cause you to reduce the number of calories you're eating overall. Those small changes, just adding in that brisk movement, a little less sugar, that can start turning things around for you. And in this case, that can not only protect your body, reduce that visceral fat, it can protect your your body and your brain. Hope that helps, Bridget. Okay, stick around, after the break we've got a listener question about those new blood pressure guidelines and what they could mean for your daily routine.

Okay, I think we're ready for another one. Kyra, take it away.

'Okay, this next one is actually a follow-up to last week's episode on the new blood pressure guidelines. And a few listeners wrote in with similar questions, but this is Cher in Kansas City wanting to know, are there other things like supplements, dietary, or lifestyle adjustments that could help me better control my blood pressure beyond medication?

'So last week we did talk a lot about the new blood pressure guidelines and some of the big headlines. One thing that a lot of people talked about was the fact that alcohol really is not recommended anymore even in moderation. This has been a big back and forth, but I think we've been headed this way for some time now. This idea that even small amounts of alcohol could be problematic. I think I mentioned last week that only about half the country, 54% of the country actually says that they drink alcohol anymore. And about half the country says that alcohol, even in small amounts, could be detrimental to your health. So it's a trend line that we're certainly paying attention to. But a lot of you wanted to know what else you could do in terms of lifestyle changes and the truth is, there's lots of different things. First of all, when we talk about things like aerobic exercise, the goal of aerobic exercise is to create a stronger heart. And if you have a stronger heart, it takes less effort to push the blood then through the body. And that can lower your blood pressure. Losing weight, again, this is an obvious one, but to give you some context, losing about one kilogram will take about a point or so off your blood pressure as well. So those things can make a difference, but I think it's probably around diet where you can have the greatest impact overall on your blood pleasure. There is a diet known as the DASH diet. That stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. And no surprise, it focuses a lot on fruits and vegetables and low-fat dairy products, reducing saturated and total fat overall. But one thing I wanted to point out, something that was actually in the guidelines, had to do specifically with salt. Adults really should be eating no more than about 2,300 milligrams of salt a day. And keep in mind, you get a lot of salt in hidden places, so you can easily get to that amount or more. So one of the things they talked about was considering using substitutes, such as potassium-based salt substitutes. One study showed that replacing sodium chloride with potassium chloride salt substitues could lower blood pressure quite a bit, about six points overall. Most people are getting plenty of sodium, not enough potassium. So simply increasing your potassium is a good idea. But something else interesting is that potassium can reduce the effects of sodium. It can actually cause your body to start to excrete the sodium. So as you increase potassium, your body starts to lose sodium. So you're getting all sorts of benefits. You're increasing your potassium overall, but you're also decreasing your sodium and all of that works to try and decrease your blood pressure. And we're talking pretty significant drops. It can drop your blood-pressure several points if you do this regularly. There's a lot of potassium-rich foods out there, bananas, we know, apricots, cantaloupe, acorn squash, potatoes, spinach, Swiss chard. Do keep in mind that too much potassium can be harmful in certain people, such as people who have underlying kidney problems. So you don't wanna do too much of any of this, but do check with your doctor if you're gonna make these sorts of changes. So again, beyond medication, there's a lots you can do. There's lot you should do. 30 minutes of aerobic activity a day, lose some weight, most of us could stand to do that. Increase your potassium, decrease your sodium. These changes really add up, and I guess I should point out something that is obvious none of this happens unless you check your blood pressure in the first place. Most people don't even know that they have hypertension. So get that blood pressure checked. Do it as often as you can. I keep a blood pressure cuff at home now, and I try and check my blood pressure in the morning and again in the evening. And I would recommend that you do the same.

'Big thanks to everyone who shared questions. You really are the reason this show works and I love that you're part of the conversation and I love being part of that conversation too. If there's something health related you've been wondering, don't keep it to yourself, share it. Record a voice memo, email it to asksanjay@cnn.com or give us a call at the old fashioned way, 470-396-0832, leave a message. Thanks for listening and we'll be back with Chasing Life on Friday.