Women have more body fat than men, but in contrast to the deleterious metabolic consequences of the central obesity typical of men, the pear-shaped body fat distribution of many women is associated with lower cardiometabolic risk. To understand the mechanisms regulating adiposity and adipose tissue distribution in men and women, significant research attention has focused on comparing adipocyte morphological and metabolic properties, as well as the capacity of preadipocytes derived from different depots for proliferation and differentiation.
Women, compared to men, have higher percent body fat and deposit it in a different pattern, with relatively more adipose tissue in the hips and thighs. This ‘female’ fat distribution, independent of total body fat, confers protection against metabolic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis . Although sex differences in fat distribution and correlations to metabolic health are well established in the clinical and epidemiological literature
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