Objective: Feline obesity represents a consistent health threat due to its demonstrated association with several diseases. Our study compared body composition and adipose tissue distribution determined by DEXA in two selected domestic feline cohorts. Methods: Twenty domestic (client-owned) cats were selected and grouped accordingly with their lifestyle and activity routines. Owners responded to a questionnaire which allowed us to separate between exclusively indoor and indoor/outdoor living (where the cat could regularly circulate in an outdoor space). All cats were subject to a physical examination guaranteeing that they were healthy, registering the weight, body condition score, sex, reproductive status, age, and breed. Animals were sedated with 100 μg of medetomidine hydrochloride/kg, IM, for body composition imaging analysis determined using DEXA (Lunar Prodigy Advance, GE Healthcare). The measurement was madewith the cat in the ventral decubitus position. The quantified parameters were body mass, lean body mass, adipose mass, bone mass, visceral adipose tissue, and subcutaneous adipose tissue. All procedures were conducted in accordance with current EU animal welfare legislation. Results: Statistically significant differences were observed between the two groups. For cats with the same body condition score, indoor animals presented a higher percentage of adipose tissue than the indoor/outdoor group (list percentages here?). For the same percentage of total body fat, the indoor group also showed a significantly higher percentage of adipose tissue accumulation in the visceral compartment compared with the outdoor group (p˂0.05). Conclusion: These findings seem to be clinically relevant since visceral fat is known to be much more active than subcutaneous fat. It is regarded as a major risk factor for diabetes, releasing various pro-inflammatory mediators that will accelerate pathological processes, namely hyperglycemia and insulin resistance. The semi-quantitative method commonly used to estimate the percentage of feline body fat, the Body Condition Score (BCS), raises various accuracy questions. Our results immediately suggest that the BCS should consider the animal’s activity profile (sedentary / active) to reinforce its predictive potential. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2026 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.
Rodrigues et al. (2026) studied this question.