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Commonality versus specificity among adiposity traits in normal-weight and moderately overweight adults

International Journal of Obesity volume 38, pages 719–723 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background:

Many adiposity traits have been related to health complications and premature death. These adiposity traits are intercorrelated but their underlying structure has not been extensively investigated. We report on the degree of commonality and specificity among multiple adiposity traits in normal-weight and moderately overweight adult males and females (mean body mass index (BMI)=22.9 kg m−2, s.d.=2.4).

Methods:

A total of 75 healthy participants were assessed for a panel of adiposity traits including leg, arm, trunk, total fat masses and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) derived from dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), hepatic and muscle lipids from proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy, fat cell volume from an abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue biopsy (n=36) and conventional anthropometry (BMI and waist girth). Spearman’s correlations were calculated and were subjected to factor analysis.

Results:

Arm, leg, trunk and total fat masses correlated positively (r=0.78–0.95) with each other. VAT correlated weakly with fat mass indicators (r=0.24–0.31). Intrahepatic lipids (IHL) correlated weakly with all fat mass traits (r=0.09–0.34), whereas correlations between DXA depots and intramyocellular lipids (IMCL) were inconsequential. The four DXA fat mass measures, VAT, IHL and IMCL depots segregated as four independent factors that accounted for 96% of the overall adiposity variance. BMI and waist girth were moderately correlated with the arm, leg, trunk and total fat and weakly with VAT, IHL and IMCL.

Conclusion:

Adiposity traits share a substantial degree of commonality, but there is considerable specificity across the adiposity variance space. For instance, VAT, IHL and IMCL are typically poorly correlated with each other and are poorly to weakly associated with the other adiposity traits. The same is true for BMI and waist girth, commonly used anthropometric indicators of adiposity. These results do not support the view that it will be possible to identify adequate anthropometric indicators of visceral, hepatic and muscle lipid content in normal-weight and moderately overweight individuals.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the InSight staff and participants who made this research possible. This work is a collaborative effort of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center InSight Research Group: Peter T Katzmarzyk, PhD; Eric Ravussin, PhD; Steven R Smith, MD; Sudip Bajpeyi, PhD; Claude Bouchard, PhD; Stephanie Broyles, PhD; Catherine Champagne, PhD; Conrad Earnest, PhD; Alok Gupta, MD; William D Johnson, PhD; Corby Martin, PhD; Robert Newton, PhD; Tuomo Rankinen, PhD; Leanne Redman, PhD; Jennifer Rood, PhD; Yourka Tchoukalova, MD, PhD; and Catrine Tudor-Locke, PhD. We especially thank Emily Mire and Connie Murla for data management, in addition to the many clinical scientists and staff of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center who have contributed to this study. This work was funded by the US Department of Agriculture as part of performance of a Specific Co-operative Agreement. This work was also partially supported by a NORC Center Grant number 2P30DK072476 titled ‘Nutritional Programming: Environmental and Molecular Interactions’ sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. PTK is funded, in part, by the Louisiana Public Facilities Authority Endowed Chair in Nutrition and CB is funded, in part, by the John W Barton, Sr Endowed Chair in Genetics and Nutrition. WDJ is supported, in part, by 1 U54 GM104940 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, which funds the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Center of Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

Disclaimer

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The Government of the United States has a royalty-free government purpose license to use, duplicate or disclose the work, in whole or in part and in any manner, and to have or permit others to do so, for government purposes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Genomics Laboratory, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    G K Raja, M A Sarzynski & C Bouchard

  2. Department of Biochemistry, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan

    G K Raja

  3. Preventive Medicine and Healthy Aging, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    P T Katzmarzyk

  4. Biostatistics Laboratory, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    W D Johnson

  5. Biology of Adipose Tissue Depots Laboratory, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Y Tchoukalova

  6. Translational Research Institute for Metabolism and Diabetes, Florida Hospital, Orlando, FL, USA

    S R Smith

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  1. G K Raja
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Correspondence to C Bouchard.

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Competing interests

CB is a scientific advisor for Weight Watchers International, Nike-SPARQ, Pathway Genomics and Gatorade PepsiCo.

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Raja, G., Sarzynski, M., Katzmarzyk, P. et al. Commonality versus specificity among adiposity traits in normal-weight and moderately overweight adults. Int J Obes 38, 719–723 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2013.153

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