Are visceral and abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue associated with different markers of cardiac and metabolic risk in obese adults?
Abdominal fat distribution defines distinct obesity sub-phenotypes, with visceral fat driving adverse metabolic and atherosclerosis risk compared to subcutaneous fat.
VAT associated with an adverse metabolic, dyslipidemic, and atherogenic obesity phenotype. In contrast, SAT demonstrated a more benign phenotype, characterized by modest associations with inflammatory biomarkers and leptin, but no independent association with dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, or atherosclerosis in obese individuals. These findings suggest that abdominal fat distribution defines distinct obesity sub-phenotypes with heterogeneous metabolic and atherosclerosis risk.
Neeland et al. (Sun,) studied this question.