Japanese-Americans are more likely than other races to accumulate excess body fat in the abdomen and liver, a new University of Hawaii Cancer Center study shows.

“This new discovery is important because excess visceral fat and liver fat found in Japanese-Americans pose a much greater risk of metabolic disorders than fat stored in other body areas,” said Unhee Lim, UH Cancer Center epidemiologist and the study’s lead author, in a news release. “These metabolic disorders, if left untreated, may lead to heart disease, diabetes and more than a dozen types of common cancers.”

The study that measured body fat distribution collected data from nearly 2,000 residents, ages 60 to 77, in Hawaii and Los Angeles from 2013 to 2016. The participants were of African, European, Japanese, Latino and Native Hawaiian descent.

The research, published in Gastroenterology, found the distribution of fat significantly different between ethnicities with the highest visceral and liver fat in Japanese and the lowest in African-Americans.

Compared with African-Americans, visceral fat in Japanese men was 45 percent higher, and visceral fat in Japanese women was 73 percent higher, while liver fat was 61 percent higher in Japanese men and 122 percent higher in Japanese women.