Interior belly fat — also called visceral fat — is the fat you can’t see that's building up around your internal organs and damaging your health. Not only does it increase your risk for prediabetes and diabetes, it also damages your cardiovascular system.

A study in the European Heart Journal used AI to evaluate imaging from more than 21,000 people and found that hidden belly fat speeds up stiffening of blood vessels and arteries, as well as causing inflammation in the heart.

And you can be a "healthy” weight and still be at risk from your visceral fat deposits.

What makes this life-shortening fat accumulate?

Eating a lot of processed and sugar-added foods, as well as poor sleep and chronic stress can cause your body to make more visceral fat than it can burn up.

But you can take steps to relieve your internal organs from visceral fat's silent assault. Try my 7-point plan:

1. Build muscle with strength-training.

2. Get your heart pumping to boost metabolism.

3. Get a dose of protein with every meal.

4. Eat more fiber — it helps prevent absorption of fat.

5. Stick with black, filtered coffee, water, and tea for beverages, and limit alcohol intake.

6. Walk for 15 minutes minimum after each meal.

7. Talk to your doctor about getting a bio-impedance analysis or DEXA SCAN to assess your amount of visceral fat.

If you try those steps without benefit, then talk to your doctor about taking a GLP-1 drug.