Researchers first started to focus on abdominal obesity in the 1980s when they realized it had an important connection to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and dyslipidemia.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s insightful and powerful imaging techniques were discovered that would further help advance the understanding of the health risks associated with body fat accumulation.

[5] Abdominal obesity is typically associated with a statistically higher risk of heart disease, hypertension, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes (see below).

[7] Metabolic syndrome is associated with abdominal obesity, blood lipid disorders, inflammation, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

[16][17] Increased adiposity (obesity) raises serum resistin levels,[18][19][20][21] which in turn directly correlate to insulin resistance.

[18][26][27][28] And it is waistline adipose tissue (central obesity) which seems to be the foremost type of fat deposits contributing to rising levels of serum resistin.

Once dyslipidemia becomes a severe problem, an individual's abdominal cavity would generate elevated free fatty acid flux to the liver.

The effect of abdominal adiposity occurs not just in those who are obese, but also affects people who are non-obese and it also contributes to insulin sensitivity.

[39] Ghroubi et al. (2007) examined whether abdominal circumference is a more reliable indicator than BMI or the presence of knee osteoarthritis in obese patients.

[40] Research published in The Lancet (2023) found that high levels of visceral fat were related to poorer cognitive performance.

[41] The currently prevalent belief is that the immediate cause of obesity is net energy imbalance—the organism consumes more usable calories than it expends, wastes, or discards through elimination.

Some studies indicate that visceral adiposity, together with lipid dysregulation and decreased insulin sensitivity,[42] is related to the excessive consumption of fructose.

It has also been shown that quality protein intake during a 24-hour period and the number of times the essential amino acid threshold of approximately 10 g[70] has been achieved is inversely related to the percentage of central abdominal fat.

[71] Visceral fat cells will release their metabolic by-products in the portal circulation, where the blood leads straight to the liver.

[72] A study has shown that alcohol consumption is directly associated with waist circumference and with a higher risk of abdominal obesity in men, but not in women.

However, high beer intake (above ~4 L/wk) appeared to be associated with a higher degree of abdominal obesity specifically, particularly among men.

Many prescription drugs, such as dexamethasone and other steroids, can also have side effects resulting in central obesity,[38] especially in the presence of elevated insulin levels.

The increased amount of fat in this region relates to the higher levels of plasma lipid and lipoproteins as per studies mentioned by Eric Poehlman (1998) review.

The effect of abdominal adiposity occurs not just in those who are obese, but also affects people who are non-obese and it also contributes to insulin sensitivity.

[89] The International Diabetes Federation defined central obesity based on these various race and gender specific cutoffs.

[91] Parikh et al. looked at the average heights of various races and suggested that by using ICO various race- and gender-specific cutoffs of waist circumference can be discarded.

[103] A permanent routine of exercise, eating healthily, and, during periods of being overweight, consuming the same number or fewer calories than used will prevent and help fight obesity.

Adjunctive therapies which may be prescribed by a physician are orlistat or sibutramine, although the latter has been associated with increased cardiovascular events and strokes and has been withdrawn from the market in the US,[106] the UK,[107] the EU,[108] Australia,[109] Canada,[110] Hong Kong,[111] and Thailand.

[114] Self-motivation by understanding the risks associated with abdominal obesity is widely regarded as being far more important than worries about cosmetics.

In the presence of type 2 diabetes, the physician might instead prescribe metformin and thiazolidinediones (rosiglitazone or pioglitazone) as antidiabetic drugs rather than sulfonylurea derivatives.

[116] Low-fat diets may not be an effective long-term intervention for obesity: as Bacon and Aphramor wrote, "The majority of individuals regain virtually all of the weight that was lost during treatment.

[119] A large central adiposity deposit has been assigned many common use names, including "spare tire", "love handle", "paunch", "boiler", and "potbelly".

[121][122] Chronic alcoholism can lead to cirrhosis, symptoms of which include gynecomastia (enlarged breasts) and ascites (abdominal fluid).

Their study showed that an increase in just an additional centimetre above normal waistline caused a 1.25% and 2.08% rise in health care costs in women and men respectively.