Inflammation is the result of many common conditions, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Chronic pain is often the result of inflammation, and Ashley Greenwald, a dietician at Johns Hopkins, says the inflammation itself may be the result of conditions like obesity.

Greenwald: There has been a plethora of research that found that people with obesity, especially in the middle section, abdominal fat, definitely have higher inflammatory potential and increased risk for developing diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, digestive problems, sleep apnea, and even in current research they find more severe Covid symptoms. That’s in the middle fat, which is more dangerous than the subcutaneous fat, which is that fat that kind of sits on the hip area, it’s a little looser, there’s a little bit of shake to it, versus the visceral abdominal fat, which is fat that’s surrounding the organs inside.  :32

Greenwald notes an easy way to determine if you have abdominal obesity is by measuring your waist circumference, a method increasingly employed in primary care practices. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.