ABSTRACT
The principal objective of this study was to determine whether visceral fat or liver fat is a more relevant risk factor for metabolic syndrome. A total of 98 subjects aged 18-65 yr, who visited a health promotion center in a university hospital, were enrolled in this study. Metabolic syndrome was diagnosed based on the modified National Cholesterol Education Program's Adult Treatment Panel III report (NCEP-ATPIII) criteria. We defined the visceral obesity as a visceral fat area of > or = 100 cm2 which was acquired by CT at the L4-5 level. To evaluate fatty liver, we applied a liver-to-spleen attenuation ratio < or = 1.1 as measured by CT at the T12 level. We employed binary logistic regression models that used the presence or absence of metabolic syndrome as a dependent variable and age, sex, and the presence or absence of visceral obesity and fatty liver as independent variables. Visceral obesity was not found to be an independent variable as a risk factor of metabolic syndrome (odds ratio 2.7; 95% confidence interval 0.55-13.30), but fatty liver was found to be significant in this model (odds ratio 71.3; 95% CI 13.04-389.53). Our study suggests that liver fat may be a more important risk factor than visceral fat in terms of its association with metabolic syndrome.
Subject(s)
Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Young Adult , Blood Pressure , Body Composition , Demography , Fatty Liver/complications , Intra-Abdominal Fat/anatomy & histology , Liver/anatomy & histology , Logistic Models , Metabolic Syndrome/diagnosis , Odds Ratio , Risk Factors , Sex Factors , Spleen/anatomy & histology , Tomography, X-Ray ComputedABSTRACT
No abstract available.