Cardiopulmonary fitness but not muscular fitness associated with visceral adipose tissue mass

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to identify the association between physical fitness (cardiopulmonary and musculoskeletal) and the distribution of abdominal fat in overweight and obese adults.

Methods

Of the total 102 overweight and obese participants, 99 participants completed all measurements. Cardiopulmonary fitness was assessed by maximal oxygen consumption test and muscular fitness was assessed using 10 repetition max. Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) were assessed by computed tomography (CT) at the level of lumbar spine 4–5.

Results

Cardiopulmonary fitness was inversely associated with both VAT and SAT, while muscular fitness only inversely associated with SAT. Multiple linear regression analyses indicated that gender, age, and cardiopulmonary fitness, but not muscular fitness, were associated with VAT, and age, cardiopulmonary fitness, and muscular fitness were significantly associated with SAT.

Conclusions

Cardiopulmonary fitness is more closely related to both VAT and SAT while muscular fitness is related with SAT.

Keywords:

• Cardiopulmonary fitness
• muscular fitness
• subcutaneous fat
• visceral fat
• abdominal fat

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Bio and Medical Technology Development Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning (NRF-2018R1D1A1B07049223). This work was supported by the Technology Innovation Program (20002781, A Platform for Prediction and Management of Health Risk Based on Personal Big Data and Lifelogging) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE, Korea).