Abstract
Purpose: We performed a prospective study to review whether bright pancreas without fatty liver was related to lifestyle-associated disease.
Subjects: The subjects were 3, 563 individuals (2, 228 males, 48.6±8.7 years old on the average, and 1, 335 females, 46.5±8.5 years old on the average) without fatty liver, as diagnosed using abdominal ultrasonography.
Methods: We performed interview, hematological examination, and abdominal ultrasonography at the subjects' first visit and 1 year later. The diagnosis of bright pancreas was based on abdominal ultrasonography. We diagnosed bright pancreas when ultrasonographic findings showed positive liver pancreas echo contrast without bright liver. We investigated age, sex, alcoholic consumption, smoking habits, physical exercise, and body mass index (BMI) as causes of bright pancreas, and reviewed the correlation with lifestyle-associated disease, for example, hypertension, diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance, and hyperlipidemia.
Results: The prevalence of mild bright pancreas was 44.8% in males (999 subjects) and 29.7% in females (397 subjects) . That of severe bright pancreas was 3.1% in males (70 subjects) and 1.0% in males (14 subjects) . The prevalence of bright pancreas was higher in elderly males with obesity. Subjects with bright pancreas tended to suffer from lifestyle-associated disease. Logistic regression analysis showed that bright pancreas was related to elderly males with obesity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus or impaired glucose tolerance, and hyperlipidemia. Serum amylase decreased statistically significantly in subjects with severe bright pancreas.
Conclusion: We considered that aging or visceral fat accumulation with lipid and glucose metabolic abnormality increase the brightness of the pancreas. Many facilities do not target bright pancreas without fatty liver in their lifestyle education. The evidence of the correlation between bright pancreas and lifestyle-associated disease indicates that we should educate individuals with bright pancreas, despite fatty liver.
