Endocrine Abstracts

Background and aims: Obesity is an important risk factor for metabolic and cardiovascular disease. Although body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference are convenient and economic methods for assessment of obesity, those could not fully reflect risk for diabetes, hypertension and early atherosclerosis.

Materials and methods: We cross-sectionally analyzed anthropometric and laboratory data of 868 Korean adults (age 53.2±11.2 years) which were recorded during regular health check-ups. Visceral fat area was determined by computed tomography, and brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity was measured as an indicator of arterial stiffness. Visceral fat obesity (VFO) was defined with our own reference value of visceral-to-subcutaneous fat ratio (VSR; median value of subjects without hypertension, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease, ≥0.74 for men and ≥0.4 for women).

Results: Subjects with generally or abdominally not obese but VFO were older and higher proportion of men, (higher prevalence of hypertension and diabetes only in abdominally obese analysis), lower BMI, waist circumference, fat mass, total and subcutaneous FA but higher visceral FA and VSR (and baPWV only in abdominally obese analysis) than those with generally or abdominally obese without VFO.

Logistic regression analysis including sex, age, BMI, waist circumference, PBF and VSR quartile showed that higher quartile of VSR was 1.7 times and 2.6 times independently increased risk for type 2 DM and 1.7 times increased risk for hypertension. Logistic regression analysis including sex, age, BMI, waist circumference, PBF, VSR quartile, hypertension and diabetes showed that higher quartile of VSR was 2.1 times independently increased risk for the presence of arterial stiffness.

Conclusion: These results suggest that measurement of visceral-to-subcutaneous fat ratio would be useful for assessment of cardio-metabolic risk to identify individuals who need more intensive intervention to prevent the metabolic diseases and atherosclerosis in overweight or obese subjects.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.