Absolute value of visceral fat area measured on computed tomography scans and obesity-related cardiovascular risk factors in large-scale Japanese general population (the VACATION-J study)

Abstract

Background. The management of cardiovascular risk factors is important for prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases (ACVD). Visceral fat accumulation plays an important role in the clustering of cardiovascular risk factors, leading to ACVD. The present study investigated the gender- and age-specific relationship between obesity-related cardiovascular risk factor accumulation and computed tomography (CT)-measured fat distribution in a large-scale Japanese general population.

Methods and results. Fat distribution was measured on CT scans in 12,443 subjects (males/females = 10,080/2,363), who underwent medical health check-up at 9 centers in Japan. The investigated obesity-related cardiovascular risk factors were hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, and elevated blood pressure. Visceral fat area (VFA) for all males and old females showed almost symmetric distribution, while that of young females showed skewed distribution with a marked left shift. Only a small proportion of young females had large visceral fat and cardiovascular risk accumulation. The mean number of risk factors exceeded 1.0 at around 100 cm² for VFA in all groups, irrespective of gender, age (cut-off age 55), and BMI (cut-off BMI 25 kg/m²).

Conclusions. In this large-scale Japan-wide general population study, an absolute VFA value of about 100 cm² equated with obesity-related cardiovascular risk factor accumulation, irrespective of gender, age, and BMI.

Clinical trial registration information. https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr/ctr.cgi?function=brows&action=brows&type=summary&recptno=R000002780&language=E.

Key words::

• Atherosclerosis
• multiple risk factor accumulation
• visceral fat
• subcutaneous fat

Acknowledgements

We thank the radiation technologists and the staff of each center for analysis of CT scans. We also thank Mrs Naho Imaeda from our laboratory for the excellent clerical assistance, and all members of the Third Laboratory (Funahashi Adiposcience Laboratory) for the helpful discussions on this project.

Declaration of interest: This research was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Health and Labor Sciences Research Grants from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (to T. Funahashi). The authors declare no conflict of interest.