Abstract
Objective: A relationship between visceral fat accumulation and lifestyle-related diseases such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia has become more widely recognized with the spread of the metabolic syndrome concept. The present study was conducted to determine if changes in various lifestyle-related disease parameters and changes in visceral fat area are correlated.
Methods: The subjects were 372 adults whose visceral fat area was measured by CT scan at least twice, and we investigated a correlation between changes in various lifestyle-related disease factors and changes in visceral fat area measurements.
Results: There was a significant correlation between changes in visceral fat area and changes in blood pressure, lipids, fasting plasma glucose, plasma glucose at 120 minutes in oral glucose tolerance test, and fasting insulin concentration. Atherosclerosis risk factors also changed with changes in visceral fat. In addition, there was a highly significant correlation between changes in visceral fat area and changes in obesity related parameters. Further, change in visceral fat area was more strongly correlated with change in body mass index than it was with change in waist circumference.
Conclusions: These results suggested that measuring visceral fat area is useful. However, a cost-benefit study of visceral fat area measurements by CT scan is also needed.
