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The effects of diet only (DO) and diet combined with either aerobic (DA) or resistance (DR) exercise on subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT), visceral adipose tissue (VAT), lean tissue (LT), and skeletal muscle (SM) tissue were evaluated in 33 obese men (DO, n = 11; DA, n = 11; DR, n = 11). All tissues were measured by using a whole body multislice magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) model. Within each group, significant reductions were observed for body weight, SAT, and VAT (P 0.05). For all treatments, the relative reduction in VAT was greater than in SAT (P 0.05). MRI-LT and MRI-SM decreased both in the upper and lower body regions for the DO group alone (P < 0.05). Peak O2 uptake (liters) was significantly improved (approximately 14%) in the DA group as was muscular strength (approximately 20%) in the DR group (P < 0.01). These findings indicate that DA and DR result in a greater preservation of MRI-SM, mobilization of SAT from the abdominal region, by comparison with the gluteal-femoral region, and improved functional capacity when compared with DO in obese men.
Ross et al. (1996) studied this question.