Associations of visceral and subcutaneous fat areas with the prevalence of metabolic risk factor clustering in 6,292 Japanese individuals: the Hitachi Health Study

Abstract

Objective: We examined the relationships of visceral fat area (VFA), subcutaneous fat area, and waist circumference, determined using computed tomography (CT), and BMI with metabolic risk factors in a large Japanese population.

Research design and methods: Study subjects comprised 6,292 men and women who participated in the Hitachi Health Study and received CT examinations in 2007 and 2008.

Results: Regarding the clustering of metabolic risk factors, the odds ratios (ORs) for the VFA quintiles were 1.0 (ref.), 2.4, 3.4, 5.0, and 9.7 for men and 1.0 (ref.), 1.5, 2.6, 4.6, and 10.0 for women (P < 0.001 for trends in both sexes). For the highest quintiles, the OR for VFA was 1.5 to 2 times higher than those of the other anthropometric indexes in both sexes.

Conclusions: We demonstrated a superior performance of VFA to predict the clustering of metabolic risk factors compared with other anthropometric indexes.

Figure 1

ORs for high triglyceride and the clustering of metabolic risk factors according to the quintiles (Q1–Q5) of VFA, SFA, WC, and BMI adjusted for age, smoking habits (never, current, past), alcohol consumption (nondrinker, drinker consuming two go or less per day [a go is a conventional unit of alcohol intake in Japan and contains ∼23 g of ethanol], or consuming more than two go per day), and regular fitness habit (yes/no). The symbols are the estimated ORs using Q1 as the reference category. The curves are fitted by the logistic regression models. The slope for VFA is significantly steeper than those for SFA, WC, and BMI on high triglyceride and on clustering of metabolic risk factors (P < 0.05) except for that on the clustering of metabolic risk factors in women. (A high-quality digital representation of this figure is available in the online issue.)