Regenerative Health with Max Gulhane, MD

32. Dr Sean O'Mara: MRI scan for Visceral Fat - the Ultimate Biomarker for Health Optimisation

Jul 3, 2023

01:16:27

Dr Sean O’Mara joins me again to talk all things VISCERAL FAT. We cover the reasons why this key indicator of human disease is not being identified, diagnosed or treated, why you need an abdominal MRI, democratizing access to MRI, working out indoors vs outdoors and much more.

Dr Sean O’Mara is a former Emergency Physician turned Lifestyle Physician with a specialty in elite tier-human performance optimization. He routinely uses full-body MRI scanning to identify metabolically-damaging visceral fat and guides his special cohort of patients through the most effective ways of eliminating it.

TIMESTAMPS
00:01:56 How the current system is failing patients

00:04:45 Different types of fat and why they matter

00:12:43 Facial and physical markers of poor metabolic health

00:14:19 Not all overweight people are unhealthy, not all normal weight are healthy

00:20:47 Radiologists do not report presence of visceral fat on routine CT and MRI scans

00:24:05 More visceral fat = worse outcome in cancer patients

00:26:30 Serum cholesterol is the wrong biomarker, visceral fat is the right one.

00:31:50 Mechanical analogies for the broken healthcare system

00:35:11 The CT calcium score was a grassroots movement, visceral fat MRI needs to be next

00:42:00 Democratizing the visceral fat MRI for health optimization – single slice at L3 level

00:49:00 Ask for a visceral fat reading of your historic abdominal CT or MRI

00:52:40 Amount AND duration of visceral fat matters

00:55:50 Visceral fat affects muscle hypertrophy

00:59:35 Muscle hypertophy as a strategy for longevity and Sean’s thoughts on Jack Kruse’s takes

01:08:43 Dr Max summarizes – perform evolutionarily appropriate exercise outside in the sun

LINKS
Regenerative Health Podcast, Sean O’Mara Series Episode I – https://youtu.be/6sURlMWBeGI

Dr O’Mara’s website - https://drseanomara.com/
Dr O’Mara Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@DrSeanOMara/videos
Twitter - https://twitter.com/DrSeanOMara
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/drseanomara/

PAPERS
Superficial vs Deep Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue: Sex-Specific Associations With Hepatic Steatosis and Metabolic Traits https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/106/10/e3881/6301935

Visceral obesity and insulin resistance as risk factors for colorectal adenoma: a cross-sectional, case-control study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19755965/

High visceral fat-to-muscle ratio is an independent factor that predicts worse overall survival in patients with primary epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, and peritoneal cancer https://ovarianresearch.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13048-023-01098-1

^These are a tiny selection of the evidence for visceral fat and poor cancer outcomes. Just enter ‘visceral fat’ and ‘xxx cancer’ and you will find many more.