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. 2023 Jun 6;13(1):9151.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-36390-z.

Adipose tissue is associated with kidney function parameters

Katharina Mueller-Peltzer #  1 , Ricarda von Krüchten #  2 , Roberto Lorbeer  3 , Susanne Rospleszcz  4   5   6 , Holger Schulz  5 , Annette Peters  4   5   6   7 , Fabian Bamberg  2 , Christopher L Schlett  2 , Blerim Mujaj  8   9
Affiliations

Adipose tissue is associated with kidney function parameters

Katharina Mueller-Peltzer et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Obesity is characterized by the accumulation of adipose tissue in different body compartments. Whether adipose tissue directly affects kidney function is still unknown. We aimed to investigate the role of the adipose tissue and circulating creatinine, cystatin C and kidney function in subjects free of cardio-renal diseases. In the KORA-MRI population-based study, 377 subjects (mean age 56.2 ± 9.2 years; 41.6% female) underwent whole-body 3T-MRI examination. Adipose tissue defined as visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) were quantified from T1-DIXON sequence using a semi-automatic algorithm. Serum creatinine and cystatin C were measured using standard laboratory and estimated glomerular filtration rate (e-GFR) was performed based on creatinine (e-GFRcrea), cystatin C (e-GFRcys) and creatinine-cystatin C (e-GFRcc). Linear regression analysis, adjusted for risk factors, was used to investigate the relationship between adipose tissue and circulating creatinine, cystatin C, and kidney function. In multivariate analyses VAT was inversely associated with eGFRcys (ß = - 4.88, p = < 0.001), and positively associated with serum cystatin C (ß = 0.05, p = < 0.001), respectively. No association was found between other adipose parameters such as total adipose tissue (TAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) and serum creatinine, urine microalbumin and eGFRcrea. Stratified analyses according to BMI revealed confirmatory results for category of BMI > 30. VAT is positively associated with serum cystatin C and inversely with eGFR based on cystatin C, suggesting a direct involvement of visceral adipose tissue in increased metabolism of cystatin C and consequently decreased kidney function.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Scatter-plots Association between TAT, VAT and SAT with e-GFR, serum biomarkers and urine microalbumin. The scatter plots depicting the univariate regression line (continues line) and 95% confidence interval (outer lines with gray area). Abbreviation: eGFRcc = estimated glomerular filtration rate based on serum creatinine and cystatin; eGFRcrea = estimated glomerular filtration rate based on serum creatinine; eGFRcys = estimated glomerular filtration rate based on serum cystatin; SAT = subcutaneous adipose tissue; TAT = total adipose tissue; VAT = visceral adipose tissue.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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