Correlation between aortic stiffness and visceral fat determined by magnetic resonance imaging.

Background And Objective: Arterial stiffening is an independent predictor for cardiovascular events. Studies using a variety of different techniques have shown that visceral fat accumulation may be related to aortic stiffening. However, there are limited data available about the study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The aim of the present study is to assess the correlation of visceral fat to the degree of aortic stiffness as determined by MRI.

Material And Method: The present study examined 95 subjects (age 69.14 +/- 9. 76 years, female 50.5%, waist circumference 93 +/- 11 cm) who underwent cardiac MRI examination. Using MRI, aortic stiffness was measured as aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) by distance divided by time delay between mid-ascending and mid-descending aorta. Body fat measures were evaluated as abdominal visceral fat volume (visceral fat), pericardial fat volume (visceral fat) and abdominal subcutaneous fat volume (subcutaneous fat). Pearson correlation analysis was performed to determine the correlation between aortic stiffness and each measure of the body fat.

Results: Mean PWV 11.41 +/- 5.30 m/s, pericardial fat 17.37 +/- 4.60 ml, abdominal visceral fat 470.85 +/- 181.12 ml and abdominal subcutaneous fat 617.57 +/- 214.70 ml. No correlation was found between PWV and each measure of body fat as follows; (1) pericardial fat volume to PWV (r = -0.025, p-value = 0.808), (2) abdominal visceral fat volume to PWV (r = 0.068, p-value = 0.520), (3) abdominal subcutaneous fat volume to PWV (r = -0.001, p-value = 0.992), (4) total abdominal fat volume to PWV (r = 0.038, p-value = 0.719), (5) total visceral fat volume to PWV (r = 0.066, p-value = 0.528). There was also no correlation found between PWV and visceral fat grouped in tertiles.

Conclusion: There was no significant correlation between visceral fat volumes and aortic stiffness.