11/22/2025
Un message essentiel qui mérite d’être lu et partagé. 💪
Merci Dr. Jules Cormier!
Dying shortly after retirement may be the worst way to go.
But unfortunately, this is not a rare occurrence.
Some people work their whole lives, chipping away at a pension plan only to be too sick to enjoy it.
An unfortunate but common thing in my line of work.
And a main predictor of healthspan is your ratio of muscle mass to visceral adiposity.
Visceral adipose tissue refers not only to how much fat you carry, but to where you carry it.
Visceral fat is the fat you store inside and around your organs. So inside your liver, pancreas and muscles primarily. It behaves extremely differently than subcutaneous fat, aka the fat you store in your skin, hips and butt.
Weight or BMI on their own are almost worthless.
We use BMI in research to categorize patients, but clinically it tells us very little about body composition and whether your weight is made up of muscle or fat.
And it doesn’t tell us where your fat is stored. That’s what really correlates to health parameters.
Weight and BMI do not capture muscle mass, visceral fat, or functional strength. These are the markers that truly predict chronic disease risk, metabolic dysfunction, and healthy aging.
By BMI standards, I am technically overweight and almost obese.
By body composition analysis, I am in optimal health with lower than normal visceral fat and higher than normal muscle mass, and I am in peak metabolic health.
The difference illustrates the problem perfectly.
Just the other day I met a patient who looked lean, thin, and outwardly healthy.
Her BMI was 23, squarely in the normal range.
Yet her body composition assessment revealed severe sarcopenia and elevated visceral fat.
Grip strength testing with a dynamometer showed muscle weakness below the third percentile.
She is in her early sixties, yet her biological age is closer to 80.
After age 20, we lose anywhere from 3-5% of our muscle mass every decade.
After age 75, we lose about 7%.
The really important thing is, muscle strength is loss at 2-5 times that rate.
That’s the problem.
She was shocked by the findings and even more shocked by how much risk had been hiding beneath the surface.
This is the silent epidemic.
A healthy weight does not guarantee healthy tissue, healthy muscle or healthy metabolism.
A thin person with high levels of visceral fat may fall through the cracks when it comes to metabolic screening with BMI alone.
And a heavy person with high levels of muscle mass may be labelled as unhealthy when in fact, their metabolic function is optimal.
Sarcopenia, visceral adiposity and low strength dramatically increase the risk of metabolic disease, osteoporosis, falls, fractures and disability.
They shape how you will age and how your golden years will unfold.
The good news is that this trajectory is not fixed.
With the right lifestyle approaches, including resistance training, adequate protein, real food nutrition, and daily movement, you can rebuild strength, reverse metabolic decline, and protect your future health.
Your golden years do not have to look like this.
You can age with power, function and confidence.
And it starts with understanding what is happening on the inside, not just what shows up on the scale.
Having sufficient strength, sufficient muscle mass, low visceral fat, and high cardiorespiratory fitness as measured by VO2 max are the foundations of a healthy retirement.
At my clinic I use BIA, or bioelectrical impedance analysis. A tool validated against DEXA.
But you can also ask your doctor about simple and cost effective measurements like the waist to hip ratio, or the waist to height ratio to approximate visceral fat. A simple grip strength dynamometer can reveal incredible insights that uncover undiagnosed muscle wasting and weakness in the frail patient. Or it can predict who will end up suffering from frailty.
It’s not only about excess fat, but primarily about insufficient muscle mass and muscle strength.
You need both.
Cardio makes you live longer.
Muscle strength helps you live longer and better.
💚 Dr. Jules
