The Associations between Obesity, Adipose Tissue Distribution and Disease

Recent research has shown the marked differences in association with disease between obesity localized to the abdominal respectively to the gluteal-femoral regions. In this review systematic analyses were performed of the associations between obesity (body mass index, BMI) or abdominal obesity (increased waist-over-hip circumference ratio, WHR) on the one hand, and a number of disease end points, and their risk factors, as well as other factors on the other, WHR was associated with cardiovascular disease, premature death, stroke, non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and female carcinomas. In contrast, BMI tended to be negatively correlated to cardiovascular disease, premature death, and stroke, but positively to diabetes. The established risk factors for these end points were found to correlate to WHR, while this was often not the case with BMI. BMI was positively correlated only to insulin, triglycerides and blood pressure. Together with diabetes mellitus, this seems to constitute a metabolic group of conditions which are thus associated with BMI. Androgens (in women), and perhaps cortisol, seem to be positively, and progesterone negatively correlated to WHR. The WHR was also positively associated with sick leave, several psychological maladjustments, psychosomatic and psychiatric disease. Attempts were made to interpret these findings. In a first alternative an elevation of FFA concentration, produced from abdominal adipose tissue, was considered to be the trigger factor for the pathologic aberrations associated with abdominal distribution of body fat. When obesity is added, the metabolic aberrations may be exaggerated. In a second alternative adrenal cortex hyperactivity was tested as the cause. When combined with the FFA hypothesis, this might explain many but not all of the findings. It seems possible to produce an almost identical syndrome in primates by defined experimental stress. Women with high WHR were found to have a number of symptoms of poor coping to stress. It was therefore suggested that part of the background to this syndrome might be a hypothalamic arousal syndrome developing with stress. It was concluded that obesity and abdominal distribution of adipose tissue constitute two separate entities with different pathogenesis, clinical consequences and probably treatment.