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Abdominal subcutaneous fat does not increase cardiometabolic risk factors
3 July 2009
MedWire News: Abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) is not associated with a linear increase in the prevalence of all cardiometabolic risk factors among the obese, a US study finds.
In individuals with high levels of visceral adipose tissue (VAT), increasing SAT is associated with lower triglycerides.
Previous studies have suggested that subcutaneous fat may be protective in terms of cardiometabolic risk.
A team led by Caroline Fox, from Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, used a sample of 1455 women and 1546 men from the Framingham Heart Study to investigate whether, among those with similar levels of VAT, increasing SAT is associated with decreases in cardiometabolic risk factor prevalence despite increasing body mass index (BMI) and total abdominal fat.
The sample was stratified into gender-specific VAT tertiles, within which SAT tertiles were examined in relation to cardiometabolic risk factors.
In the lowest VAT tertile, risk factor prevalence was low, although systolic blood pressure in women and rates of high triglycerides, impaired fasting glucose, hypertension, and the metabolic syndrome in men increased with increasing SAT tertile.
In the top VAT tertile, significantly lower triglycerides were observed in men with increasing SAT (64.4% high triglycerides in SAT tertile 1 vs 52.7% in SAT tertile 3). Similar observations were made in women, although results were not statistically significant (50.6% high triglycerides in SAT tertile 1 vs 41.0% in tertile 3).
In the highest VAT tertile there was no significant increase in the prevalence of low HDL levels in men and women or in rates of impaired fasting glucose in men with increasing subcutaneous fat, despite differences in BMI across SAT tertiles (ranging from 27.1 to 36.3 kg/m2 in women, and from 28.1 to 35.7 kg/m2 in men).
Writing in the journal Diabetes Care, the researchers conclude: “Among those in the lower two thirds of the VAT distribution, more SAT is also associated with increased risk of most other risk factors examined, suggesting that SAT is not protective in these individuals.
“Among those with the most VAT, however, increased SAT is associated with lower triglycerides, suggesting that SAT may be associated with beneficial effects on triglyceride levels in the obese.”
