Waist circumference and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry measures of overall and central obesity are similarly associated with systemic oxidative stress in women

Abstract

Growing evidence suggests that overall and abdominal obesity might lead to oxidative stress (OxS), which, in turn, plays a key role in the pathogenesis of a wide spectrum of diseases. In this study, for the first time, we compared the correlations of indirect, i.e. anthropometric, and direct, by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), measures of body fat with circulatory OxS markers in women. To address this issue, we assessed central and total body fat mass (FM) by DXA, and serum levels of advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP), thiols and hydroperoxides in 275 healthy women (age 21–65 years; body mass index [BMI] 21.1–32.0 kg/m²; waist circumference [WC] 60.1–109.9 cm). Among the markers considered in the study, only hydroperoxides levels, i.e. by-products of lipid peroxidation, were significantly (p < 0.05 for all) and positively correlated to body fat accumulation after controlling for confounding factors. In particular, this marker was found to be similarly associated with DXA-derived total FM, total FM % and trunk FM as well as with WC. Of note, hydroperoxides appeared to be correlated with abdominal but not with general obesity, as classified according to standard WC and BMI cut-offs, respectively. In conclusion, taken together our data demonstrated that, at least in women, the measurement of body FM by DXA has no advantage over the simpler and cheaper WC with regard to their associations with systemic OxS markers. Moreover, WC emerged as a superior potential predictor of OxS compared to the other most commonly used anthropometric measures (including BMI and waist to hip ratio).

Key Words::

• Antioxidants
• body mass index
• reactive oxygen species
• lipid peroxidation
• obesity

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Maria Grazia Bonora for her skilled organization of clinical protocol. They also want to thank Monica Squerzanti for her meaningful contribution in data collection and processing and Angelapia Massaro for proofreading the text.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

The study was supported by “Local Research Project” grant from University of Ferrara, Italy.