Body fat found under the skin -- and particularly on the buttocks -- may help reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, research suggests. The study contrasts this subcutaneous fat with visceral fat, which is wrapped around the organs, and raises the risk of ill health. ...

The researchers, who worked on mice, transplanted fat from one part of the animals' body to the other. When subcutaneous fat was moved to the abdominal area, there was a decrease in body weight, fat mass, and blood sugar levels.

The animals also became more responsive to the hormone insulin, which controls the way the body uses sugar. A lack of response to insulin is often the first stage on the path to type 2 diabetes.

In contrast, moving abdominal visceral fat to other parts of the body had no effect. Lead researcher Professor Ronald Khan said: "The surprising thing was that it wasn't where the fat was located, it was the kind of fat that was the most important variable. Even more surprising, it wasn't that abdominal fat was exerting negative effects, but that subcutaneous fat was producing a good effect."

Overeating, not the obesity it causes, is the actual cause of metabolic syndrome, suggests a study with mice by researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. ...

This study was among the first to propose that weight gain is an early symptom, not a direct cause, of metabolic syndrome, the researchers said.

"Most people today think that obesity itself causes metabolic syndrome," senior author Dr. Roger Unger, professor of internal medicine, said in a prepared statement. "We're ingrained to think obesity is the cause of all health problems, when, in fact, it is the spillover of fat into organs other than fat cells that damages these organs, such as the heart and the liver. Depositing fatty molecules in fat cells where they belong actually delays that harmful spillover."