In this episode Rob Calder talks to Dr Germán Carrasquilla about his study assessing whether smoking cased increases in abdominal obesity or belly fat. They discuss the implications of this kind of fat and note the importance of the findings for people who struggle to quit smoking. Germán talks about using Mendelian randomisation to identify a causal association between smoking and abdominal obesity. The findings, that 'smoking initiation and higher lifetime smoking may lead to increased abdominal fat', add evidence and important detail to the known health benefits of quitting smoking.

"People who might be afraid of quitting smoking due to putting on weight find these findings motivating to quit smoking because smoking increases this problematic internal fat which is a risk factor for many other diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease."

Original article: Estimating causality between smoking and abdominal obesity by Mendelian randomization by Germán Carrasquilla and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2024)

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