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Changes in fat quality, quantity linked to intensified CVD risk factors
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Independent of other measures of adiposity, increasing quantity of fat and decrease in fat attenuation were associated with worsening of CVD risk factors, according to new findings.
The researchers analyzed 1,106 participants from the Framingham Heart Study Third Generation cohort (mean age at baseline, 45 years; 44% women) who underwent two CT exams to determine whether changes in abdominal fat quality and quantity had a relationship to changes in CVD risk factors.
The outcomes of interest were abdominal adipose tissue volume and attenuation in Hounsfield units. Mean follow-up was 6.1 years.
Among participants, mean fat volume change was a gain of 602 cm3 in subcutaneous adipose tissue and a gain of 703 cm3 in visceral adipose tissue, Jane J. Lee, PhD, from the NHLBI’s division of intramural research, the Framingham Heart Study and the Population Studies Branch, and colleagues wrote.
Mean change in fat attenuation was a decline of 5.5 Hounsfield units for subcutaneous adipose tissue and a rise of 0.07 Hounsfield units for visceral adipose tissue, the researchers wrote.
Each 500-cm3 increase in fat volume was associated with onset of hypertension (subcutaneous adipose tissue, OR = 1.21; 95% CI, 1.03-1.41; visceral adipose tissue, OR = 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1-1.55) and metabolic syndrome (subcutaneous adipose tissue, OR = 1.43; 95% CI, 1.23-1.68; visceral adipose tissue, OR = 1.82; 95% CI, 1.51-2.19), according to the researchers.
Each additional 5 Hounsfield-unit decline in subcutaneous or visceral fat attenuation was associated with hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, low HDL, hypertriglyceridemia and metabolic syndrome, Lee and colleagues found.
Most of the relationships remained significant after adjustment for BMI change, waist circumference change or abdominal adipose tissue volumes, they wrote.
In a related editorial, Ian J. Neeland, MD, and James A. de Lemos, MD, both from the department of internal medicine, division of cardiology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, wrote the findings “support a growing body of data that clearly demonstrate that adipose tissue imaging, which allows anatomical characterization of regional fat depots, provides important information about cardiometabolic risk not contained in the simple BMI measurement.” – by Erik Swain
Disclosure: Two researchers report being employed by Merck. The other researchers, de Lemos and Neeland report no relevant financial disclosures.
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