In a sideline interview during the 2026 Garmin Health Summit, a resident physician with a specialized Malaysian medical weight loss and metabolic health center revealed that many individuals mistakenly chase weight loss through extreme starvation and unmonitored supplements—inadvertently wasting vital muscle instead of reducing actual fat. To fight back, clinicians…
Key takeaways
A Malaysian doctor warns that individuals with normal weight can still face severe health risks due to hidden internal fat and low muscle mass, a condition known as skinny fat. Standard BMI measurements fail to detect this metabolic danger, which carries risks similar to clinical obesity.
- Skinny fat involves low muscle density and high visceral fat despite a normal external appearance.
- This condition poses risks for strokes, heart attacks, and fatty liver disease comparable to clinical obesity.
- Standard BMI and weight checks fail to identify this hidden metabolic risk in patients.
Summarised automatically by AI from the original article by The Rakyat Post. AI can make mistakes, so check the original for details.
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A normal number on your bathroom scale might be lying to you.
Data from Megaklinik Dr Suffian, an award-winning medical weight loss and metabolic health centre based in Klang Valley, shows that traditional weight checks and Body Mass Index (BMI) calculators completely miss a major danger: hidden abdominal fat.
Speaking to TRP on the sidelines of the 2026 Garmin Health Summit in Bangkok, Thailand, Megaklinik Dr Suffian resident physician Dr Khairulanwar Abd Aziz explained that many patients suffer from sarcopenic obesity—more commonly known as being “skinny fat.”
