2020 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 194-202
Objective: The evaluation of visceral obesity is important in relation to metabolic syndromes. While measurement of waist circumference (WC) is useful, visceral obesity and lifestyle-related diseases are detected even with normal WC. In this study, we measured visceral fat area (VFA) and examined its benefit in health check-ups.
Methods: We studied 12,679 patients (54.2 ± 10.0 years old, 1,424 men, and 11,255 women) who underwent a health check-up between October 2014 and March 2018. VFA was measured by the abdominal bioimpedance method, and atherosclerotic and lifestyle risk factors were evaluated.
Results: Significant positive correlations were observed between WC and VFA (r=0.876). We determined that 13.8% men and 3.2% women from the patient group had normal WC and high VFA. These patients had significantly higher number of risk factors that exceeded 1.0 (men, 1.18 ± 0.87 vs. 0.93 ± 0.82, p<0.01; women, 1.14 ± 0.91 vs. 0.60 ± 0.76, p<0.001) when compared to patients with normal VFA. In addition, there were significant differences in weight change which was defined as weight gain of 10kg past 20 years of age and eating habits such as fast eating speed and duration of less than 2 hours between dinner and bedtime.
Conclusion: Patients with high VFA will likely develop risk factors for atherosclerosis in spite of normal WC. In these patients, especially those with difficulties in weight change and eating habits, it is important to measure VFA in addition to WC.
