The Concept of CMR
Slides, videos and moreThe Concept of CMR
Epidemiology
Abdominal Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes
- 1Key Points (1 page)
- 2The “Diabesity” Epidemic (1 page)
- 3Beyond Excess Body Weight (1 page)
- 4Abdominal Obesity: the Diabetogenic Obesity (3 pages)
- 5Upper Body Fat Distribution: the Importance of Intra-abdominal Adipose Tissue (2 pages)
- 6References (1 page)
Abdominal Obesity: the Diabetogenic Obesity
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The role played by body fat distribution in type 2 diabetes risk has also been investigated in women. In 1989, a prospective study of 1,492 women followed for 12 years reported that WHR independently predicted type 2 diabetes (27). In the Nurses’ Health Study—a prospective study conducted on a cohort of over 43,000 women free of diabetes and other major chronic diseases at baseline—Carey et al. (28) examined the 8-year incidence of type 2 diabetes among quintiles of baseline BMI and waist circumference values. They found a consistent increase in type 2 diabetes risk as waist circumference increased within each BMI category. They also found that a high BMI value predicted type 2 diabetes, even among women with a low WHR or low waist circumference values. The Nurses’ Health Study therefore yielded solid evidence that using waist circumference to measure abdominal obesity can enhance our ability to predict type 2 diabetes risk beyond what can be provided by BMI. However, BMI should be measured along with waist circumference to properly evaluate type 2 diabetes risk among overweight/obese patients.
More recently, a large prospective study by Wang et al. (29) examined a cohort of over 27,000 men followed for 12 years. The study compared the predictive power of waist circumference, WHR, and BMI in diagnosing type 2 diabetes. To assess the independent and additive associations of overall obesity and abdominal adiposity to type 2 diabetes risk, subjects were stratified by BMI categories (30 kg/m2) and further classified by waist circumference (100) and WHR (0.95). Study findings showed that type 2 diabetes risk increased with waist circumference and WHR within each category of baseline BMI, revealing that both overall and abdominal adiposity independently predict type 2 diabetes risk. The study also found that measuring abdominal adiposity using waist circumference and WHR provides a strong indication of type 2 diabetes risk, independent of overall obesity.
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