Obesity is a burgeoning public health problem with the rates of this condition differing by age, sex and ethnicity. The distribution of abdominal fat also differs by ethnic group. For example, compared to non-Hispanic Whites, African Americans have lower levels of visceral fat while having higher body mass index and waist circumference. These differences have important implications for the interpretation of the ethnic-specific relationships between abdominal body composition, inflammation and incident cardiovascular disease events. Notably, the standard anthropometric measure of body mass index cannot discriminate between different kinds or ratios of tissue types comprising the body weight. Accordingly, we propose to evaluate volumetric abdominal body composition in 1,970 men and women aged 45-84 at baseline, who are being studied in an ancillary study to the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) for abdominal aortic calcium (AAC) by computed tomography (CT). The MESA has an extensive database of biomarkers and subclinical CVD measures on each participant, who are also being followed for incident CVD events. We propose to measure and calculate 5 discrete volumetric measures of abdominal body composition from the CT scans: subcutaneous fat, visceral fat, intramuscular fat, the visceral fat to visceral cavity ratio and the lean muscle to visceral fat ratio. We will also perform assays for several pertinent measures of inflammation. Using this and existing MESA data, we plan to test the hypothesis that measures of abdominal body composition will be significantly associated with incident coronary and cardiovascular disease events, independent of traditional CVD risk factors, inflammation and subclinical CVD. We will determine if there are differences in this association by age, sex and ethnicity and will also ascertain the influence of selected dietary and physical activity variables. Furthermore, the richness of the augmented MESA dataset will afford the opportunity to discern whether there is clear advantage afforded by the 5 distinct CT measures of body composition over the traditional measures of BMI and WC. This will provide important physiologic and clinically relevant information on the potential therapeutic targets for interventions aimed at reducing CVD risk by altering the composition of fat in different compartments, including skeletal muscle. We are unaware of any other population-based study that is as comprehensive as this to study the stated aims.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HL088451-03
Application #
7640721
Study Section
Cardiovascular and Sleep Epidemiology (CASE)
Program Officer
Aviles-Santa, Larissa
Project Start
2007-09-01
Project End
2012-06-30
Budget Start
2009-07-01
Budget End
2010-06-30
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$439,402
Indirect Cost
Name
University of California San Diego
Department
Family Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
804355790
City
La Jolla
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
92093
Vella, Chantal A; Cushman, Mary; Van Hollebeke, Rachel B et al. (2018) Associations of Abdominal Muscle Area and Radiodensity with Adiponectin and Leptin: The Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Obesity (Silver Spring) 26:1234-1241
Mongraw-Chaffin, Morgana; Foster, Meredith C; Anderson, Cheryl A M et al. (2018) Metabolically Healthy Obesity, Transition to Metabolic Syndrome, and Cardiovascular Risk. J Am Coll Cardiol 71:1857-1865
Rao, Vishal N; Zhao, Di; Allison, Matthew A et al. (2018) Adiposity and Incident Heart Failure and its Subtypes: MESA (Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis). JACC Heart Fail 6:999-1007
Gao, Chuan; Langefeld, Carl D; Ziegler, Julie T et al. (2018) Genome-Wide Study of Subcutaneous and Visceral Adipose Tissue Reveals Novel Sex-Specific Adiposity Loci in Mexican Americans. Obesity (Silver Spring) 26:202-212
Vella, Chantal A; Allison, Matthew A (2018) Associations of abdominal intermuscular adipose tissue and inflammation: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Obes Res Clin Pract 12:534-540
VAN Hollebeke, Rachel B; Cushman, Mary; Schlueter, Emma F et al. (2018) Abdominal Muscle Density Is Inversely Related to Adiposity Inflammatory Mediators. Med Sci Sports Exerc 50:1495-1501
Mongraw-Chaffin, Morgana; Allison, Matthew A; Burke, Gregory L et al. (2017) CT-Derived Body Fat Distribution and Incident Cardiovascular Disease: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 102:4173-4183
Remigio-Baker, Rosemay A; Allison, Matthew A; Forbang, Nketi I et al. (2017) Race/ethnic and sex disparities in the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease-abdominal aortic calcification association: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis 258:89-96
Chu, Audrey Y; Deng, Xuan; Fisher, Virginia A et al. (2017) Multiethnic genome-wide meta-analysis of ectopic fat depots identifies loci associated with adipocyte development and differentiation. Nat Genet 49:125-130
Afshar, Mehdi; Luk, Kevin; Do, Ron et al. (2017) Association of Triglyceride-Related Genetic Variants With Mitral Annular Calcification. J Am Coll Cardiol 69:2941-2948

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