American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 66, 1345-1351, Copyright © 1997 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc

ORIGINAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

Intraabdominal adipose tissue and anthropometric surrogates in African American women with upper- and lower-body obesity

JM Conway, FF Chanetsa and P Wang
US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center, Diet and Human Performance Laboratory, MD 20705, USA. conway@bhnrc.arsusda.gov

It is well established that visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is associated with increased morbidity and mortality in white women. In a recent study, we found that African American women had smaller depots of VAT. To test the relation of VAT to the commonly used anthropometric surrogates for fat patterning, including waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist circumference, subscapular skinfold thickness, and ratio of triceps to subscapular skinfold thickness, we recruited 48 normotensive African American women > 120% of ideal body weight on the basis of WHRs > 0.85 [upper-body obesity (UBO); n = 23] and < 0.76 [lower-body obesity (LBO); n = 25]. There were no differences between groups in age, height, weight, body mass index, or percentage of body fat. VAT was determined by magnetic resonance imaging at L4-5; percentage of fat was determined by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Women with UBO had significantly larger mean (+/- SEM) depots of VAT at L4-5 than did women with LBO (0.26 +/- 0.02 compared with 0.19 +/- 0.02 L). Waist circumference was the single best predictor of VAT at L4-5 in both groups of women whereas WHR was significantly associated with VAT at L4- 5 only in women with UBO. In African American women, waist circumference is a better surrogate for VAT than is WHR.

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