Cutoff and Target Values for Intra-Abdominal Fat Area for Prevention of Metabolic Disorders in Pre- and Post-Menopausal Obese Women Before and After Weight Reduction

BACKGROUND: The Japan Society for the Study of Obesity originally proposed a cutoff value of >100 cm(2) for the intra-abdominal fat area (IFA) as a definition for "visceral fat obesity" in Japanese adults. There are no studies on the cutoff or target values after weight reduction in pre- and post-menopausal women. METHODS AND RESULTS: In the present study 149 pre-menopausal obese women (PreM, 43.3 years, 27.3 kg/m(2)) and 58 post-menopausal women (PostM, 53.9 years, 27.7 kg/m(2)) participated in a 14-week weight reduction program. The IFA was measured by computed tomography. The program induced significant reductions in body weight (8.6 kg in PreM and 7.8 kg in PostM). The IFA decreased significantly from 80.4 +/- 41.3 to 50.7 +/- 23.8 (PreM) and from 115.4 +/- 38.0 to 75.7 +/- 30.5 (PostM). CONCLUSIONS: The receiver-operating characteristic curve analyses revealed that the appropriate cutoff values were 80 cm(2) (PreM) and 110 cm(2) (PostM) before the program, and after the program the appropriate target values were determined as 60 and 70 cm(2), respectively.