Fat distribution may hold answer to cardiometabolic risk

The location of body fat, as well as the sex of the person, may be critical factors in determining a person’s risk for cardiometabolic disease, according to findings presented at the Radiological Society of North America Annual Meeting.

“Fat distribution is an important determinant of cardiometabolic risk, with certain ectopic fat depots — visceral adipose tissue, intramyocellular and intrahepatic lipids — being more detrimental than others, such as femorogluteal subcutaneous adipose tissue,” Miriam A. Bredella, MD, radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues wrote. “We hypothesized that there are sex differences in body composition and ectopic fat depots and that these are associated with a sexspecific cardiometabolic risk profile.”

Researchers recruited 200 participants who were overweight or obese, did not have diabetes and were otherwise healthy. Of this total, 109 were women. The mean BMI of all the participants in the study was 35.2 ± 5.8 kg/m² and the mean age was 37 ± 10 years.

Bredella and colleagues found that women had a higher percentage of fat mass and lower lean mass vs. men (P < .0001) when using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Men had more visceral adipose tissue/abdominal femorogluteal subcutaneous adipose tissue, visceral adipose tissue and muscle mass (P < .0001), intramyocellular (P = .0008) and intrahepatic lipids (P = .005), whereas women had more femoral subcutaneous adipose tissue (P < .0001).

Researchers also found that men had higher measures of cardiometabolic risk, including homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance, fasting insulin, apolipoprotein B and serum triglycerides vs. women. Also, in women, intramyocellular and intrahepatic lipids and visceral adipose tissue were strongly linked to these measures for cardiometabolic risk, whereas in men these links were nonsignificant or weaker.

“The female pattern of fat distribution is associated with improved cardiometabolic risk compared to men at similar BMI, while ectopic fat in women portends greater metabolic risk,” researchers concluded. – by Janel Miller

Reference: Bredella MA, et al. Abstract SSC09-08. Presented at: Radiological Society of North America Annual Meeting. Nov. 26-Dec. 1, 2017; Chicago.

Disclosure: Healio Family Medicine was unable to determine the authors relevant financial disclosures prior to publication.